


The Sound Of Silence

by checkerboardom



Category: Daredevil (TV), Doctor Strange (Movie - 2016), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avenger Loki, F/M, Infinity War, M/M, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:46:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 66,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3952927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/checkerboardom/pseuds/checkerboardom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I plan to rid the universe of Thanos’ presence, but for that I will need your help.” Loki pauses and looks the inventor over for a long moment. “If you are up to it, that is.”  </p><p>-Or a canon-divergent au where Loki has a plan and takes Earth’s Mightiest Heroes along for the ride. What ensues is a story of earned trust, chosen families, and learning to love, even when you thought you couldn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Illusions

He can hear the crunch of Thor's footsteps as he rushes to his side, rocks skidding from his path. He can hear his brother's desperate "No, no, no," even as it echoes through his head along with the dying screams of the Kurse. And oh does it echo, like the screech of his fa-  _Odin's_  ravens, like the silent scream of the Void. Then Thor's there, lifting his head and silencing the noise, one hand cradling his neck in a way that's achingly familiar, in a way that he would despise if he wasn't burning up inside, while the other presses to his wound. He shouldn't be dying.

Not this quickly.

But the Kurse's blood -from the sword, from the monster's wound- has lit his flesh on fire in a way that his magic is scrambling to rectify. He knows it won't be enough and he knows that Thor knows it too, because his voice is already tightening with grief when he says, "...you fool, you didn't listen!" Thor is jostling him in a way that should hurt but doesn't. _Leave it to Thor to roughly cradle somebody while they're dying_ , he thinks bitterly. And he is dying, he knows that for certain now.

His magic is raging within him like a tempest, trying to repair the damage even as his skin goes ashen. It had done the same when he was within the Mad Titan's clutches, when the Other had brought him to the brink of death only to be brought back, again and again. It's draining him much too fast now and he knows he should calm it, should focus it on his wound instead of _everywhere_  like an all-consuming storm, but it's all he can do to say, "I know. I'm a fool... I'm a fool."

And oh, he is. A fool for ever believing that he could have been more, that he could have ever been anything more than a puppet. To Odin, to Thanos, to Fate. Oh how the Norns must have laughed at the prince that believed he could be a king, at the Jotunn monster that had been hidden inside an Aesir shell for a thousand years. Such a fool...

"Stay with me." Thor commands, no,  _pleads_  as he reaches up and smacks Loki's cheek. It get's him to focus enough to know that he's shivering now. And then he's apologizing. For nothing, for everything, for his jealousy, and his spite, and his tricks. For his lies, always half-biden on his tongue. His breathing is loud and thunderous in his ears, so much so that he almost misses Thor's near-silent "It's okay." Then his brother repeats himself, only louder this time. "It's alright. I'll tell father what you did here today."

It's both the right and wrong thing to say, because Loki could care less what Odin thinks ( _I could have done it, father!_ ), but he also knows what Thor means with his statement.  _You won't be forgotten._ It brings him back enough for his voice to remain steady when he next speaks. "I didn't do it for him."

Thor's eyes search his, jaw clenching as his hands tighten into Loki's clothes. He waits until he knows that Thor has found what he's looking for, that Thor has really heard him for once.

Then, and only then, does he let his eyes slip closed.

...

When he opens them again, he is met with grey. Grey clouds, grey skies, grey everything. He knows almost instantly where he is and while a part of him is relieved, another part sends his parting words to the Kurse back at him.  _See you in Hel indeed_ , he thinks as he slowly stands. His pain and the all consuming flames of his death are gone, but so is his magic, and he can't help the not so fleeting surge of panic that washes through him at the hollowness it leaves. All his life he's had it singing within his veins, ready for use in tricks and protection alike, and the fact that it's so utterly silent now makes his lungs tighten within his chest.

Righting himself, he takes a steadying breath of stale grey air and begins to walk. He has no purpose in mind, but he knows that his daughter will hear the echoes of his presence soon enough. He won't wander alone for long, he knows. And he doesn't, for a figure becomes apparent through the fog, stride full of all the grace and power of a queen.

"Hello daughter." He greets as she comes to stand before him, her black hair shining even in the nearly non-existent light. Her skin is mottled with different shades of grey, something normally seen as ugly, but something Loki has only ever seen as beautiful. She reflects the world around her, dead but still thrumming with life.

"Father," She holds her hand out to him. Or no... Not to him. To Frigga, who comes to stand beside her grand-daughter. He moves to embrace her but she evades him, stepping just out of reach. A flash of hurt goes through him before he can mask it and her mouth turns up into a small, sad smile.

"You cannot touch me while you are here. It would break your soul's tether to your body and bind it here instead."

And the pain that that statement brings is quickly overridden by confusion. "Am I not yet bound to this place?"

"It isn't your time to enter my gates," Hela tells him, gesturing to the grey landscape around them. Loki tears his eyes away from Frigga, wishing that he could touch her -just this one last time. Frigga nods and his daughter's eyes are alight with wisdom when she turns to him. "You must go back."

Back. Back to Asgard with its golden halls and its people who had despised him even before he fell. He rounds on his mother angrily, voice so bitter that he's nearly hissing. "Is it truly my destiny to wile away the rest of my existence in a cell on Asgard?" She would deny him peace, here in Helheim with his daughter, peace away from the wills of others, always trying to control the would-be king.

Frigga's hands rise as if she wants to comfort him like she did when he was a child, when she would cradle his softer, smaller ones in her own. "You are destined for great things, my son. Never forget that. I have woven the treads of fate, watched them as the slipped like silk through my fingers. It is not your time, not for a long while yet." She pauses, lets out a soft gust of breath into the air around her. "Your father will not be happy with Thor once he returns from his quest. He will need you there, like he has in the past."

"And why should I care-" He begins but Frigga silences him with a stern look.

"He is your brother, Loki." Is all she says and his lips press into a thin, unhappy line before he nods. Her fingers intertwine as she lets out a nearly imperceptible sigh.

Turning to Hela, he hears a quiet "Be safe, my son" as his daughter presses her lips to his forehead.  _Good-bye mother_ , he silently replies as darkness overtakes him once more.

...

Asgard is quiet and calm when he returns. There is still destruction in nearly every place he looks, but there is no longer a battle. He takes the guise of an Einherjar (takes a moment to feel his magic  _rush_  through his veins with a sense of euphoria) and makes his way to the throne room. Odin is alone, his usual retinue of guards either dead or looking for Thor. He goes with the latter, because there aren't nearly enough bodies to confirm the former.

"There's no sign of Thor or the Aether. However, we found a body..." He lets himself trail off, eyes downcast in a show of subservience that burns him to his core, and shifts as Odin turns toward him.

The All-father's next word is but a whisper: "Loki." For a moment he thinks that Odin has seen through him, has looked into the heart of him and seen the fallen prince beneath. But then, "Where is he?"

Smiling to himself, Loki drops his illusion and steps forward. "Here."

There is a knife in his hand with a mere flick of his wrist and he reaches forward and grabs the staff just as he drives the blade's sharp edge into the gut of the man that he once called father. He briefly wonders if this is how his mother died, trusting in Thor absolutely even though it only led to her death. He watches Odin fall and plucks Gungnir from his grasp with ease. He tries not to think of letting go and falling down, down, down into the Other's clutches.

"Loki... My son," Odin gasps and Loki clenches his fingers around Gungnir to keep from rending the world apart.

"I am NOT your son!" He spits, and watches as Odin's eye goes wide and misty. It reminds him bitterly of when the king had fallen into Odin-sleep and left him to rule over a people that hate him. He didn't want the burden then and he doesn't want it now. He doesn't want to be the ruler of a stagnant civilization of gods that would love nothing more than to see him burn. But this time, there is something that he needs to do before he can find peace. He can't have Odin ruining things, now can he?

Raising Gungnir, he brings it down with a crack and watches as the columns, once rubble, now move to stand tall and golden once more. When he looks, Odin's body is gone. Casting an illusion of his father upon himself, he turns and leaves the hall. He means to visit his son, knowing that he may never have the chance to see him again after this day. No one stops him, no one dares come in the way of the All-Father. Out of deference to his grief or his power, Loki does not know, nor does he care.

When he reaches the royal stables Sleipnir is quiet, perfectly still with his head held high as he awaits orders.  _Like a proper war-horse_ , Loki muses. Sending a brush of magic out, he greets his son and lets his eyes bleed to familiar green. The change in him is instantaneous, muscles quivering in excitement as he tosses his head and whinnies. Loki shushes him, a soft "Be calm, my son" falling from his lips as he steps into the stall. Sleipnir's massive head bows and he bumps it against Loki's chest in greeting.

"I have missed you too, dear one." He murmurs as he strokes his son's mane. "I have been away for too long, longer than I had ever hoped to be parted from you." Which is true. Sleipnir is the only one of his children that he can visit with near enough frequency, unlike Jörmungandr who is bound to Midgard until Ragnarok is brought upon them. Or Fenrir, whom is so much like Vali, a wolf, broken and bound for the purpose of the Aesir. Or even Narvi, forever beyond even Hel's reach, slaughtered by his brother when Loki had failed to protect them both. He knows it was not his fault, but the grief he felt at the time, the grief that he still feels over the loss of his first born sons has never quite diminished. It was the guilt that had driven Sigyn away when they should have stayed together for strength. It was the same guilt that had seen him into Angrboda's embrace, to bring three more children into the world that had taken his firsts away.

Sleipnir butts his chest again, drawing him from his thoughts. His large, equine eyes stare at him unblinking and Loki sighs. "I must leave you once again, after I have seen to your grand-mother's wishes. She wants me to save Thor from her husband's wrath and I had half a heart to decline, but" He pauses, searching for the words. "I do not despise Thor, not as much as I want to, not as much as I once did. He is still rash and arrogant and too much of a fool, but he... He is no longer as gullible as he once was."

Pressing a hand to his son's cheek, Loki presses a spell of safety into the horse's flesh. "I will see you again." He tells him and can only hope that his words hold true.

...

When Thor comes, he is once more in the throne room, standing with Gungnir in his hand. Thor kneels before him, a gesture that makes an internal part of him smile. "You once said that there would never be a wiser king than me," He begins and Thor's brow knits in confusion. "You were wrong. The alignment has brought all the realms together; every one of them saw you offer your life to save them." He pauses for a moment, long enough to mentally run over his next words. "What can Asgard offer its new king in return?"

"My life." Thor tells him, just as Loki knew he would. His voice is solemn as he stands. "Father, I cannot be king of Asgard. I will protect Asgard and all the realms with my last and every breath, but I cannot do so from that chair. Loki, for all his grave imbalance, understood ruling as I know I never will." At that, Loki tilts his head. Maybe Thor has grown more to understand the world, after all this time. "The brutality, the sacrifice, it changes you." Thor drops his gaze, seeming to pause to gather his words. "I'd rather be a good man, than a great king." He finally says, and my, how his brother has matured.

But still, "Is this my son I hear, or the woman he loves?" He can't help but ask and Thor's reply throws him, makes him sigh and look down at the staff in his hands.

"When you speak, do I never hear mother's voice?" And Loki is sure it was true once, when Odin had held council with both his sons and assured them that they would be great, that they were born to be kings. His mother had said the same many times over, with a gentle smile on her face as she guided him through his spell-work. "This is not for Jane, father, she does not know what I came here to say. Now, forbid me to see her, or say she can rule at my side, it changes nothing."

Loki sits, leaning on the throne for support more than anything. He does not know what he would have done if Thor had accepted, how he would have kept up this farce with him still here, but now he does not have that worry. And if Thor has his way, he never will.

"One son who doesn't want the throne, another who wanted it too much." He sighs. "Is this to be my legacy?"

Thor's face shutters, eyes growing dark for a moment. "Loki died with honor." Loki raises a brow. "I shall try to live the same. Is that not legacy enough?"

He gives a small nod, eyes once more going to the staff in his hand. There was once a time when Thor would never had said such things to his father, when he would have done anything to be worthy of the throne. But now, now he defends Loki, despite all he's done to him, to Asgard and to Midgard, to the realm he had vowed to protect with his life. Now he offers up his hammer, something Loki knows he was never himself meant to wield.

"It belongs to you, if you are worthy of it." And when Thor meets his eyes, he is no longer the pride filled child he once was, nor the angry man that stood outside his cell and spoke of trust.

"I shall try to be."

Loki shakes his head. Not such a fool, not anymore. "I can not give you my blessing, nor can I wish you good fortune."

"I know," Thor nods, turning away.

Loki should let him go, he really should. "If I were proud of the man my son has become, even that I could not say." And there goes the truth again. Last time Thor had acted against Odin's wishes, he had been banished and stripped of his immortality. He now knows that Frigga was right in sending him back; who knows what punishment the king would have thought up next.

"I would speak only from my heart." He continues, offering Thor a smile as he turns back. "Go, my son."

Thor dips his head, a smile barely lighting his face. "Thank you father." And with that he's gone.

Loki waits until he's out of sight before letting his illusion fall, a smile playing across his lips. "No, thank you." He says, and the great hall is the only witness to his words.

...

If there is one thing that Loki quickly learns, it's that ruling is a tedious, fury inducing thing. Not only must he orchestrate the rebuilding of Asgard after the invasion of the elves, but he must attend to the people. The guild-masters and the smiths, the masons and the guards, the lords and ladies, all vying for advise that they really didn't need, if only to get a chance to speak to the king.

 _Tedious_ , his mind snarls as he half-listens to a healer and a seamstress bicker over plants that the other could use in her own craft. He thinks of Frigga, of how she would have been here to advise and mediate if he had not told the Kurse where to find her. Resisting the urge to drum his fingers on the arm of the throne, something he had done once like a bored child in his lessons, he brought the staff down to the ground with a satisfying crack. No power was emitted with the action but the women fall silent immediately.

Turning to the guard positioned at the nearest column on his right, he inclines his head toward the women. "See that the healers get what they need from the shares, then give the rest to the seamstresses." When the cloth-worker opens her mouth to speak, Loki leans forward, Odin's eye studying her for a long moment. "Surely the health of Asgard's people matters more than a bolt of vibrant cloth."

The woman flushes, but doesn't dare protest as the guard leads them away. Leaning back again, Loki taps his fingers once, twice on the throne and refrains the urge to sigh. Tedious. The remainder of the day -no week- continues in such a manner, but despite the squabbling amongst the Aesir, he's able to set the first steps of his plan into motion.

He sends the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif on an errand to deliver the Aether to a man he met long ago in his travels. He knows that the Collector will keep it safe, just as he plans to keep the Gauntlet safe. He can't remove it from the Vault, for such an action would raise suspicion, which he can't afford even if it is the easiest option. No, he leaves it where it is, but spends a full night weaving a tapestry of protection wards around it. It glows briefly as the spells take hold, power thrumming through the air in a way the makes the two guards shoot each other cautious looks. He ignores them and reaches a hand forward, feeling the blanket of magic for imperfections and smiles when he finds none. The spell cannot be broken, not by his death or by anything of less powerful significance than that of an Infinity Gem. It will do.

He repairs the city and palace next, and begins the restoration of the broken Bifrost. Within days Asgard is once more the pinnacle of the Nine, rebuilt better than it ever was before. He cannot avoid Heimdall in all his work, but the Guardian of the Realm Eternal does not interfere. He knows not whether the Gatekeeper knows of his ruse, but if he does, he has not seen fit to stop Loki. The trickster muses about this as often as he is able in the interim of days, with Hunin and Munin perched about his shoulders as he prepares. They are silent as well, bound to their King Regent, even if the title came about by nefarious means.

The last of his tasks is to meet with delegates from a select few of the other nine realms. It's mostly polite chit-chat and hearsay, a few even going so far as to compliment him for raising such a fine prince as Thor. Veiled, of course, and wrapped in enough political silk that he can feel a headache forming, but still something that he finds immensely amusing. Not that he lets it show. He brings up an alliance, a way to bring all the Realms together in a time of need, and the delegates nearly shiver at the chance, like hounds on the scent of a hare. They agree, eager at the chance to get favor from the man that holds power over their Realms in a way that their own Kings and Queens never will. They give their fealty readily enough, whether out of fear or agreeance, he cares not.

The only surprise of the everything comes from the tendrils of a spell that he had weaved around Odin's rooms. It's meant to alert him of any intruders, no matter how heavily they may be masked from such spells. The alert from his magic rings up his arm like an electric shock just as he's musing on whether to cause a bit of mischief to liven up an otherwise dull feast. He clenches his fist for a few seconds to banish the feeling and stands up. Excusing himself with a few choice words, he makes for his room and waits until the door is firmly locked with a whispered spell before letting his illusion drop. Only then does he turn to the intruder in his chambers. "I have to admit, I expected you to take a little bit longer to wake up this time." He tells the All-Father as he makes his way to the far side of the space, Gungnir in hand.

Odin's eye narrows as he follows the movement. "No matter how much you claim to not want the throne, you always manage to prove yourself false." The king tells him and Loki smiles, sharp and glittering like broken glass.

"You could say that I had an errand to run concerning Thor." He returns and Odin's expression shifts from calm to anger in a moment as he steps toward Loki.

"What have you done?"

"Nothing that I wasn't told to do." Loki says, not bothering to reestablish the distance between them again. "Don't worry  _father_ , your son is safe."

Odin makes to grab him and Loki slips from his grasp like so many shadows, appearing half the room away with a laugh. "Do not play games, Loki." Odin warns, a power reverberating within his words that sends Loki's laughter to a bubbling halt.

"Forgive me, I wasn't aware that the fate of the universe was a game to you." He clucks his tongue in a disapproving manner, like a nurse with a babe. "There are no games here Odin; there haven't been for a while. I rebuilt Asgard to withstand the power of a Titan, just as it will need to do in the near future. I do not need you interfering now of all times." And with that he reaches forward, a spell humming along his lips to send Odin back into sleep, but it never lands.

"It is not I who interferes," Odin snaps and swipes Loki's hand aside with surprising strength. There is a flash of white-gold-green, and a scream of rage, then all is silent.

Odin stands alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And there it is! This chapter is mostly exposition, but I promise things will pick up in the next chapter. And we might get a bit of Tony! *cough**cough*


	2. Visions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki finds himself in an unsavory predicament, Thor's getting discourage in his search for answers, Tony really doesn't like whatever game Loki thinks he's playing, and Thor finally gets an answer, although it may not be what he expects.

When he opens his eyes he is met with a blur of grey. His first thought is that he had been returned to Helheim which, although not the best, could be worked around. Then his vision clears and he notices...trees? Helheim, for all it's blunt beauty was not known for its forests; it was a tundra, a plain of grey interrupted by mountains. That is not the sight that greets him this time. No, he wakes among trees and silence so pure that it sends a chill down his spine. Picking himself up, he brushes off his clothes, plain and soft, unlike his elaborate battle leathers, and takes in the foliage around him.

There isn't a hint of color. No speckle of green leaves or the rich brown of the dirt beneath his feet. Nor is there the sound of bird song or the whisper of the wind that moves the branches around him. To his right a stream runs, clear enough for him to spy the pebbles of it's bed, but it does not bubble like a normal stream. The water flows silently, lapping at the shore in distilling quiet.

"The Isle of Silence," He murmurs and the chill turns into a ball of ice in his stomach. He cannot hear his own voice, he realizes with a jolt, and promptly bites down on the urge to scream. "Oh, Odin's wrath must be great, that he would send me here of all places." And he knows with the certainty of Fate that he cannot stay here, lest he be driven insane. Walking to the stream, he crouches down and cups his hand into the water. It's cool and sweet against his tongue, as pure as it's clarity would suggest. His reflection stares up at him from the calmer waters of the shore, black hair and pale skin, but where his eyes should be a vibrant green, they are a dull grey.

Suppressing the urge to shiver, he murmurs a spell and watches as his mother's image swims into focus. She doesn't move, not like she would if he was actually scrying, but she smiles at him nonetheless. She is an image of his memory, brought into the real world by a spell he had learned long ago under her tutelage. "Is this what you wanted, mother?" He asks her and she continues to smile, eyes warm and grey instead of familiar blue. Letting out a frustrated snarl, he picks up a rock and throws it into the water, causing her to vanish. Picking up another, he throws it as well and continues to do so until his anger runs out. When he is done, he looks up into the boughs of the trees and screams.

...

Tony is barely awake when he stumbles into the kitchen at around two in the morning. He's been up for way too long and his mind is starting to feel fuzzy in a wholly unpleasant way, but he knows that he needs to eat and drink something before he even thinks about sleep. Pepper's had the "your health is more important than science, Tony" talk with him plenty of times and he doesn't particularly feel like incurring her wrath any time soon. Hence the breakfast.

The Tower feels empty this late at night (early in the morning?), and Tony fights down the urge to ask Jarvis to raise the room brightness. Humming the lyrics to Sweet Child O' Mine under his breath, he digs around in the fridge until he finds enough fixings for a sandwich and uses his foot to close the door. Turning to dump his spoils onto the counter, he nearly throws them into the air when he spots Thor sitting at the island. The blonde looks troubled and tired, like he's lost on a train of thought that he'd rather not be. Opening the bag of bread, Tony leaves him to his brooding long enough to begin making his sandwich before speaking up.

"Something up, Thundercat?" He asks, waving his butter knife in a manner that seemed to indicate...well, everything. Thor startles and gives him a pathetic sort of smile. It falls quickly and Thor's ensuing sigh sounds like the first roll of thunder in a storm.

"I am fine, Tony, merely tired." Thor tells him, shoulders bunching in an almost defensive way. Tony snorts and throws a couple of pieces turkey onto his sandwich.

"Sure, you are." He mutters and Thor shoots him an annoyed look. Tony grins and raises his hands, tomato and knife included, in a sign of surrender. He's not up for picking a fight with a veritable god, but he wouldn't be Tony Stark if he didn't take the time to poke said god with a metaphorical stick every now and then. He's pretty sure the effort annoys Thor more than anything, and Steve thinks he's pretty much insane, but eh, what are you gonna do? "I was just agreeing."

"You are an infuriating friend, Man of Iron," Thor rumbles as Tony bites into his sandwich, but his shoulders lose some of their tension. The god is silent for a few minutes, then, "I'm growing frustrated in our lack of success in finding Loki's staff. It should not be this difficult." He sounds both annoyed and sad, a combination that Tony finds completely off putting. Annoyance? He can deal with that. Sadness? Not well, but he can try. Put both together and you've basically found his emotional Kryptonite, go figure.

"I know that finding the staff means a lot to you, but we've pretty much looked everywhere for it." Tony tells him in an awkward attempt at comfort, but Thor shakes his head.

"We would have found it if that were the case, yet we have not. No, Loki's staff is here on Midgard, we just know not where." Thor disagrees. "If I ever mean to have answers to my brother's actions, I will need it. And surely you see the merits of having such a powerful weapon out of reach from someone who could use it for harm."

Tony takes a swig of his water and hums. "I get it, believe me, I do, and I'm all for helping. I'll dig into whatever databases I can and take Iron Man out for a spin if you need me to. What I'm saying is, don't let it drive you into a bad mood. We find it or we don't, it's not the end of the world. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with a king sized mattress." He yawns for emphasis and Thor gives him a genuine smile, eyes lighting up in a way they haven't since he came back baring the news of his family members' deaths.

"Thank you, my friend," He intones and Tony takes that as his cue to leave.

His bed is empty when he gets there, because Pepper is once again out of town for a meeting. He misses her, just like he always does when she's gone on business but a part of him is also relieved. Ever since the Killian incident, he and Pepper had been growing apart. They'd both tried to make it work, Tony especially, but something had shifted in the dynamic of their relationship since then and it wasn't at all good. They snapped at each other more. Not outright arguing but still heated in a way that makes Tony uncomfortable.

Pepper's perfect, she always has been to him, but she isn't perfect  _for_  him, not in the way he had once thought her to be. It was fine in the beginning, when the biggest threats to Pepper's life were humans with a grudge against Iron Man. It was a totally different thing when it was aliens from light-years outside their galaxy that far outsmarted them in the technology field. He hates the feeling of helplessness that that thought brings with it, so he had worked on creating something to keep his planet safe. He thinks Pepper had drawn the line at the Iron Legion. It probably reminded her too much of the Mark Forty-Two, and despite his reassurances that Jarvis had the Legion fully under control, she had put her foot down. It had been the bots or her, and even though it pains him, Tony can't leave Earth a duck sitting in water while the rest of the universe lined up there guns. So they had split. Sorta.

Pepper still sleeps in the tower with him. She's still there when the nightmares get too bad, when panic threatens to take his breath away in a way it hasn't since Afghanistan. She's still Pepper; loyal and beautiful and too good for him. She's just not the Pepper that he would have one day married. Or really, he's just not the Tony that would have one day married her.

Mentally shaking himself from his thoughts, he forgoes a shower in favor of changing into a fresh pair of boxers and a tank top. He knows he'll just shower in the morning, and it's not like Pepper's there to wrinkle her nose at him in that way she sometimes does, so he just crawls into bed and tells Jarvis to lower the lights

...

 _Everything is grey_ , is his first thought, shortly followed by,  _who the hell cut off all the sound?_ It's not the most comfortable of feelings ever and he pauses to stick a finger in his ear for the sake of trying. Nothing happens, not even a pop, and he resists the urge to clap his hands to really test things out. He turns in a circle and takes in his surrounds. There's nothing much beyond trees, a fallen log or two, a stream, and even more trees, but it's something at least. He makes his way to the stream and is just about to touch the water to see if it feels real when a scream rips through the silence in the air. It's loud and angry in a way that sends his heart hammering in his chest and he crouches for a moment, utterly still until the echoes fade.

"Hello?" He calls and he almost smacks himself, because that's exactly what every dumbass in a horror movie does right before some lunatic stabs them in the throat. He can't hear himself but it seems like the forest goes even more quiet in response. Straightening, he walks in the direction that he's sure the noise came from, but everything pretty much looks the same to him. "Could you maybe yell again or something?" He tries again, hopeful for an answer, but like before he gets nothing.

"Okay, Dering Woods," He mumbles as he steps over a log blocking his path. "Why am I here?"

"I would hope to ask you the same thing." A voice drawls to his right and he whips around mid-step and ends up with a face full of soggy leaves. Rolling over with a groan, he looks up into amused grey eyes and freezes.

"Are you a hermit in the afterlife or do you just generally enjoy scaring people in the woods?" He asks and he swears that Loki's lips twitch. "Wait, if this is the afterlife, does that mean I'm dead? Because Pepper's gonna have a field day if that's the case. Then again I guess it's horribly ironic that I would die in my sleep instead of, you know, saving the world." He stands and brushes himself off, then grins in a way that he knows is utterly infuriating. "Okay, okay, last question. Are you going to stab me in the throat?"

Loki's brows furrow in annoyance for a moment and Tony's seen the same expression on Thor's face enough times that he can't help laughing. Loki makes a noise of disgust and walks off, vanishing into the trees ahead. Straightening up with a curse, he runs after the god, but it quickly becomes apparent that Loki won't be found if he doesn't want to be. "I'm not gonna say sorry, if that's what you want!" He yells into the air around him. Loki never replies and he ends ups wandering for a while. The ensuing silence makes him more annoyed than anything and after a bit he ends up cursing at every rock that tries to trip him up.

It's not the worst dream ever -at least he hopes that it's a dream- but he hates it nonetheless. And he kind of hates Loki for leaving him alone to the utter silence that makes his skin crawl in a way that it hasn't in a while. The least he could do was talk to him, but no, he'd rather sulk somewhere. Tony's pretty sure that Loki can't hear anything either, and even though it's just a guess, the thought annoys him ever more, because he can't be so bad that Loki would rather hear _nothing_  than deal with him.

"You're a dick, you know that right?" He shouts for the hell of it and a branch comes out of nowhere to smack him in the face.

Typical.

...

He doesn't see Loki again until after everything goes down with Ultron. He finds the trickster this time, instead of the other way around, and takes a moment to study him. He looks peaceful in a way that throws Tony for a loop, eyes closed and arms resting loosely by his sides. Everything around him is still, unaffected by the wind that Tony can feel ruffling his hair even now, and he takes a moment to ponder whether or not to disturb him. His need to end the unnerving silence around them wins out though and he opens his mouth to speak.

"I assume that you are done gawking then, Man of Iron?" Loki questions before he can get a word out and Tony just blinks at him for a moment.

"How did you know I was here if you can't hear me?" He shoots back instead of answering, because either his guess from before was wrong or Loki is really just that weird. Or he peeked. When Tony says as much, Loki's lips curve up in a smile that's half mocking, half genuine amusement.

"I can assure you that my sense of hearing fares no better than your own." He tells Tony, which doesn't really answer either of his questions, but it'll do for now. He wouldn't be Loki if he wasn't a complete asshole after all.

Walking until he's closer, but still not quite within reach, Tony waits for Loki to open his eyes before trying to say anything else. Eventually the god does and Tony takes that as his cue. "You never answered my questions from before." He points out, watching as the god studies a bird not far from them.

"I am not going to stab you in the throat, nor am I a hermit." He finally offers, curling the last word in distaste, and Tony glares at him. Don't get him wrong, he's all for the sarcastic humor that Loki seems to prefer, but he'd really rather not have to put up with it while stuck in... whatever this place is. Sitting down on a log across from the god, he leans back against a nearby tree and crosses his feet at the ankle. He's fully prepared to wait the god out and Loki seems to realize it, because he continues. "This is not the afterlife, Stark, and you are not dead, as I'm sure you noticed upon waking from our last meeting. I am here because Odin put me here after I impersonated him upon Asgard's throne and would much rather not be, which coincidentally is why you are here as well. And to answer your earlier question, I knew because I felt the vibrations in the air around me."

"I..." Tony begins, but then snaps his mouth shut because honestly he doesn't know where to start. Loki seems to guess as much and merely closes his eyes again. "Okay, two things. Firstly, none of that explained why I'm here and you know it. So maybe a little less vague next time or I might leave your ass here until you learn to give a straight answer. And what the hell does 'feel the vibrations in the air' even mean? Because if there's vibrations there has to be sound, so either you're pulling my leg or there is actually sound in this forest and we just can't hear it." Loki gives him a pointed look at that and Tony realizes that he just answered his own question.

"Very good." Loki agrees and Tony lets out a short, annoyed laugh.

"You're still a dick." He points out and ignores the grin he gets in response. Yep, still a dick. "So there's sound that we can't hear, like the fucked up version of a dog whistle, which is cool but not really helpful at all. That still doesn't answer  _why I'm here_."

"You are here so that you can pass on a message to Thor." Loki tells him. "Or at least to alert him that I'm not dead."

"Yeah... no. Does the whole destroying New York and trying to subjugate Earth not ring any bells to you? Or throwing me out of a window, for that matter. Why would I want to help you with anything at all, much less get in contact with Thor so he can break you out of your little magic forest prison?"

"You dim-witted, arrogant-" Loki begins with a furious growl before stopping and taking a deep breath. Tony doesn't let him continue though, because in all honestly the less he has to deal with Thor's crazy brother the better.

"Oh no, go ahead. In fact, you finish what you were gonna say and I'll give you my answer."

Loki narrows his eyes at him in suspicion. "And what answer would that be?" He finally asks and Tony gives him a sharp, bitter smile.

"Go fuck yourself." He tells the god and stalks off before Loki can say anything else.

...

The next morning Tony corners Thor in the mansion's kitchen, and by corner he means that he plops down on the chair beside Thor with a too large cup of coffee in his hand. "So, you're off to Asgard today then?" He asks and if Thor notices anything unusual about his tone, he doesn't mention it.

"Indeed," He agrees. "Now that Loki's staff has proved unsuccessful in providing the answers I seek, I plan to speak with my father about the vision I had while under the Lady Maximoff's spell."

"The...uh, Hel thing?" He hedges and Thor nods. "About that, how do you know that that isn't all Loki's doing?" Loki had to have done something to earn himself a vacation to... wherever the hell he is, right? He had said that it was because he had impersonated Odin, but who knows what the hell he actually did?

"My brother is dead, Tony Stark," Thor tells him, eyes dark with something that makes Tony think it's best to drop the subject and never, ever bring it up again. Even if he wanted to tell Thor about Loki, the thunder god's tone makes him swallow the notion down with the next graw of his coffee. "Even if he could effect Asgard from beyond the gates of Helheim, he would not be responsible for the things I saw."

"Okay, forget I said anything." Tony reassures and Thor looks relieved. "I was just asking to ask, is all. And I know that no one has probably told you this, but I'm sorry about your brother." He's not really, but he does feel sorry for Thor. The big guy just doesn't know when to give up when it comes to his brother, which would normally be a good thing if his brother wasn't, ya' know, _Loki_. Thor doesn't reply, but he does give Tony an appreciative look right before Steve wanders into the kitchen as well.

"I'm guessing neither of you have tried making food?" He asks and when Tony grins at him, he sighs and starts digging in the fridge for omelet fixings.

"We were waiting on you, of course." Tony tells him as Rogers begins heating up a skillet and the Captain rolls his eyes. Turning to Thor, Tony gives the god a wink before downing the rest of his coffee and going to get more. After a few minutes, Steve lays out three plates of eggs along with a plate of buttered toast. "Honey, you shouldn't have." Tony quips and Steve merely gives him a long suffering look. It's a quiet breakfast after that, but not in a way that Tony really feels like breaking. It's comfortable silence, and Tony doesn't get that enough to want to ruin it by running his mouth. So he keeps it shut and the others do the same.

It's not until they're halfway done that anyone really says anything, and it's Steve who does, sitting down his fork after he finishes his omelet. "I know you're leaving, Thor, but what about you, Tony? Wanna help me train the new recruits?" He sounds hopeful, which, while cute in a golden retriever sort of way, it's not really enough to curb Tony's natural aversion to the whole "teacher" thing. That's much more Steve and Natasha's thing. And besides, he has a not-so-crazy god of mischief problem right now, even if he won't ever tell any of them that. It's not out of control, yet, and he'd much rather not give any of them another reason to question their trust in him so soon after the Ultron... thing.

So he shakes his head and takes a gulp of his new coffee instead. "Can't, I have a tower to fix -again- and an AI to update." Because while Friday may be good, she's certainly no Jarvis, and Tony... is not thinking about that. Not at all.

Steve looks put-off, but he masks it well after a few seconds and nods. "Guess it's just Nat and I." He concludes and Thor claps him on the shoulder in support.

"You will do fine, my friend. All of them are fine warriors already." He tells him and Steve smiles in return.

After that, they clear up their dishes and make the walk to the front of the mansion where Rhodey had left his car waiting. He'd promised that he hadn't scratched it, but Tony will have to see for himself just in case. It's not until they reach the elevator that Steve makes a comment about Mjolnir, and they end up taking a detour for science. The elevator does in fact go up and Tony wins twenty bucks off of Steve, which leaves the soldier silent up until they reach the lawn. They stare after Thor for a bit, then Tony looks down at the Mansion's yard and starts complaining. It gets Steve to crack a smile and makes Tony feel better, despite the niggling feeling in his gut that his dream with Loki had left all morning.

...

"Heimdall!" Thor calls upon his arrival in the Bifrost chamber. "It is good to see you, my friend."

"And you, my prince," The Gatekeeper replies with a solemn nod as he lets go of the sword in the center of the observatory. "I trust that your quest went well." He adds and Thor's beaming smile falters along with his steps.

"I have much to speak with my father about concerning my time on Midgard. Not all of it is good, I'm afraid." He tightens his grip on his hammer out of habit, before letting it loosen. He resumes his stride to the Guardian and lays a hand upon his shoulder. "Asgard has fared well in my absence?"

"It has, now that the damage the elves wrought has been repaired. However, Odin knows of your arrival and would surely like to have words with you before you settle."

"Of course," Thor nods and makes his way to where a servant is waiting with his horse.

The ride to the palace is short, but it still allows Thor to see how far Asgard has come since the elves. There are no signs of its prior destruction and he takes a moment to look up at the tallest spires of his home. Everything is gold and gleaming in a way that makes pride swell in his heart, but he can't help but notice the invisible scars marring his city. There are glimpses of his childhood everywhere he looks, of days spent running in the streets to evade his lessons, with his brother by his side. Shaking his head, he lets loose a sigh and reminds himself that his brother is gone, even if his heart isn't ready to accept it just yet.

His father looks haggard when he greets him, laying a hand on his shoulder and clamping it tight as Thor kneels before him. "Welcome home, my son."

"It is good to be home." Thor tells him and rises when Odin motions him to. His father holds a hand out before him and Thor falls in step beside him as he begins to walk along the palace halls. "There is a matter I would speak to you about."

"There was a time when would you would talk to me as a son, instead of a warrior." Odin remarks with a pointed look and Thor drops his head. "I do not say so to make you feel shame. I merely wish you to understand how you have changed."

"I understand." Thor assures him, although he's not sure that he does. His father's lessons are not always clear to him while they are being taught, but afterwards, once Thor has time to think on them.

"Tell me what you came here to say then." Odin commands and Thor takes a moment to gather his thoughts before explaining his visions. Odin is silent throughout the retelling, never once interrupting. Thor cannot read his thoughts on his face, he has never been able to, but where before there was once a hint of emotion, his father is blank now. Like a sheet of metal before it can be forged into a weapon. When Thor finishes his tale, Odin merely sighs and offers him what could pass for a reassuring smile.

"What you saw will not come to pass, not now nor in the future." Odin tells him, but Thor can't be satisfied with that. He needs answers, not reassurances.

"But what were the visions, father? What fate has Asgard evaded?" He tries and his father's hand tightens around Gungnir briefly. When Odin next speaks, his voice is hushed in what could be taken as fear from a lesser man.

"Ragnarok."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, this story is not going to be a Ragnarok story. It's much more than that, but Thor needed answers. I'll also try to lay off on the cliff-hangers, it's a filthy habit.


	3. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Loki manage to get through two conversations like civilized human beings (sort of), our favorite inventor gains some insight concerning Loki while also getting his first look at a Titan, and an old ally of the Trickster God comes into play.

When Tony next dreams of Loki, he tells the Trickster God about Thor's departure for Asgard and the god's ensuing look of incredulousness is  _this close_  to being insulting. "You told him?" He asks, stepping closer, but not quite close enough to invade Tony's personal space.

"I didn't tell him anything." Tony corrects and Loki does that little eyebrow furrow thing that makes Tony want to laugh. He wonders if Loki realizes how much he looks like Thor when he does that, but he knows that bringing it up won't go over very well. So he bites down his laughter and crosses his arms instead. "He had a vision concerning Asgard and some place called Hel, so he decided to go back home to talk to Odin."

"That means nothing to me." Loki tells him in a dismissive voice and Tony bristles internally, before reminding himself that this is  _Loki_  he's talking to. There's no way that the god won't store that little tidbit away until it does mean something, but for now it's mostly insignificant to whatever he must be planning. He watches the trickster pace for a few moments before Loki abruptly stills and turns to him with a predatory smile. "Would you like to know why  _I'm_  here, Man of Iron?"

Yes, absolutely, Tony wants to say, but that smile gives him pause. "Not if it will cost me." He says with a shrug and he can swear that there's a hint of disappointment in Loki's eyes.

"Surely you're curious," The god practically purrs, but Tony's nowhere near as gullible as Loki seems to think he is.

"Curious, not stupid," He corrects. "If you want to tell me, I'm all ears, but as soon as you turn this into a power play, I'm done listening. It'll get you absolutely nowhere and you'll just end up pissing me off. Capiche?"

Loki narrows his eyes for a moment, then a genuine smile graces his face, like Tony's surprised him by having a higher intellect that a doorknob. "Of course." He starts to pace again, steps silent across the ground. "I told you why I am here, but not how I came to be in Asgard after my death in Svartalfheim. Upon my arrival in Helheim, what your people would consider the afterlife, I was met by my daughter and Frigga. They expressed concern for my... for Thor, and urged me to go back."

"They brought you back to life." Tony concludes and Loki nods. "For Thor?"

"The irony is not lost on me, I assure you." Loki tells him, voice flat. "You see, Thor committed several acts of treason in order to stop Malekith, while convincing his friends and Asgard's Gatekeeper to do the same. While his actions were necessary, Odin is a king before he is a father, and my mother feared that Thor would be punished for his actions when he didn't deserve to be. So I discarded of Odin temporarily and gave Thor leave to do as he wished."

"And you're not worried about Odin punishing him now that he's back in Asgard?"

Loki shakes his head. "The All-father is not a fool, at least not politically. He does not know what I told Thor upon my tenure as Asgard's king, so he will refrain from doing anything that will reveal my part concerning Thor's pardon. I have no doubt that he means to leave me here, out of sight and out of his way, now that the option is available to him."

"That's..."  _Rough,_  he wants to say but Loki cuts him off with a scathing glance.

"I do not need you pity, Stark. I merely wish for you to send Thor to talk to my daughter. If what you say is true and he did have visions concerning Hel, that task won't be too difficult, even for you." And there's the Loki that Tony can't help but despise a little.

"Does it ever occur to you that your habit of insulting people is the reason you don't have any friends?" Tony asks, because there's no way anyone would put up with this shit for any length of time, much less however long Asgardians are meant to live.

"Whoever said I needed friends, Stark? As long as people do what I ask, I could care less about their personal feelings toward me."

"Okay then," Tony huffs. He's not exactly convinced with the whole "help Loki get out of Jail" plan, but he'd be lying if he says he isn't going to think about it. He says as much and Loki makes a vaguely rude gesture at him. The next thing he knows, he's waking up surrounded by softs sheets with the artificial light of his bedroom shining bright in his eyes.

"Friday!" He groans and the lights dim enough for him to roll over and go back to sleep.

...

When Thor returns from Asgard, he comes with a crackle of lightning that flashes through the sky above New York like a camera flash. It's already raining, so the rumble of thunder isn't all that out of place. Which is probably why Tony doesn't notice him until Thor taps on his balcony window.

"Sir, Mr. Odinson is on the balcony." Friday tells him and Tony waves his hand for her to open the door. It unlocks with a click and swings open enough for Thor to get the hint. The god strides in, red cape billowing behind him and rain dripping from his hair.

"Welcome back, big guy." Tony calls over the back of the couch and waves a hand toward the decanter of whiskey on the coffee table. "Go change out of your armor, then we'll talk." Thor frowns, but nods and makes his way toward the elevator. He pauses before pressing the button, opens his mouth to say something, then closes it with an audible snap. Tony winces, because there's no way that that was gentle on his teeth.

He knows what Thor wants to ask, knows that his friend is concerned about the drinking, but Tony can honestly say he hasn't touched the bottle since he sat it on the table. He's just spent all afternoon looking at it, because what else is he supposed to do? Everyone's gone, even Pepper, and he has a Norse God of Lies waiting for him when he goes to sleep. Normally he would be down in his lab, but he hasn't since the disaster with Ultron. His workshop feels dirty now. Or, at least that's the only word he can think of for the dark feeling that stirs in his stomach whenever he ventures down there. It's always too dark, even when he has the lights as high as they can go, and he can't stop seeing the remnants of Wanda's magic induced nightmare whenever he stays there for too long. Hence, the whiskey. Even if he's not actively getting drunk, the thought that he can if he wants to settles his nerves better than anything. And he knows exactly how bad that sounds, thank you very much.

Getting up, he grabs the decanter and the empty glass beside it and puts them back in his bar just in time for Thor to return. He's in red t-shirt and jeans now and Tony gives him a thumbs up in approval. "Want anything?" He asks gesturing to the bottles behind the bar and Thor declines with a polite, "No, thank you." Tony shrugs and grabs a bottle of water for both of them anyway. Thor takes it when he offers it over, but sits it on the table after staring at the label for an unnecessary amount time.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you didn't get the answers that you were looking for." Tony says as he plops down beside the god and Thor sighs. The sound is getting annoyingly familiar after the last few months and Tony vows to get Thor to stop. Somehow. He'll think of something, okay?

"My father explained the implications of the visions, but assured me that they are of no significance now that Loki is gone." Thor tells him and Tony's stomach does a little flip. Aw, crap.

"Mind sharing with the class then?" Tony asks and Thor spends the next ten minutes explaining in great detail what Ragnarok is and how Loki's involved. By the end, Tony lets out a long whistle. He has to admit that he's impressed. Who would've thought Reindeer Games had it in him to be a father, and by the sound of it he's a pretty damn good one despite Odin's interference. Thor speaks of his nephews and niece with obvious pride, although his voice does tend to go infinitely sad whenever he mentions the wolf kid, Fen-Something-Or-Other.

Tony mentions as much, but Thor just shakes his head. "It is not Fenrir that brings me sorrow, my friend. Merely the children before him, but that is not a story that is mine to tell."

Tony resists the urge to try and dig deeper, because he doesn't need Thor mad at him for being a nosy bastard. "So, your brother is supposed to bring about the end of the Nine Realms some time in the distant future, but he can't now, because he's dead?" Tony asks, just to clarify, because he and Loki are going to have a good long talk about why destroying planets is a bad thing.

"It is an old prophecy, written before either Loki and I were born, but yes." Thor agrees and Tony holds out his water bottle in a toast.

"That sucks, man." He says, and Thor taps their bottles together before taking a swig. It's not as satisfying when it's water, but Tony would much rather be clear headed. Can he and Loki even share dreams if he's drunk? He doesn't know, and there doesn't really seem to be a set pattern. Sometimes he ends up in the Forest o' Doom, sometimes he doesn't. Loki could be the one calling him there, but that thought makes Tony uncomfortable on so many levels. "And if Loki wasn't dead, what would you do?" He finds himself asking, even though he doesn't mean to.

Thor doesn't answer for so long that Tony starts to think he won't at all, but then he shakes his head. "I do not know. The brother that I remember has been lost to me for a long time now, perhaps even before his fall."

"Fall?" Because there's no way that Tony can leave something like this alone. Thor never really speaks of Loki all that much and after a while Tony and the others had learned not to bring Little Brother Chaos up for the sake of keeping the peace. But if Thor's willing to share now, Tony's not going to waste the opportunity. He's going to need all the information he can get while dealing with Loki, after all.

"Yes, his fall. During our initial battle in Asgard, I destroyed the Bifrost to prevent the annihilation of the Jotnar, but the impeding shockwave sent both of us over the edge. Father caught me and I caught Loki by the spear in his hand."

"He let go?" Tony asks, a sick feeling rolling around in his stomach at the thought.

"I had thought him dead until my return to Midgard." Thor admits, voice subdued. "He had fallen into the Void between worlds."

_And came out of looking like a torture victim_ , Tony recalls, thinking back to the footage from the Shield base in Texas. He suddenly understands Thor's need for answers more than ever, because really, what the hell happened between Loki's fall and his arrival via tesseract? It couldn't have been anything good, since Loki is a god, after all, and the thought makes Tony shiver. What could torture a god enough to look like Loki had? He doesn't know, but he plans to find out.

...

Loki spends his time in the Isle meditating, the practice of which better allows him to build up his magical reserves with the added bonus of distracting him from where exactly he is. Stark is proving to be frustrating to talk to, if not at all helpful. The mortal has a habit of being surprisingly smart while also managing to ruin whatever good graces Loki finds in him by being utterly infuriating. It's refreshing in a strange way and Loki has no doubt that the man could prove to be useful once fully informed. A part of Loki suggests that it's like looking at a much shorter version of himself, but Loki discards the notion.

He means to leave soon, but he needs Stark on his side before he tries, since there will be no point in returning to Midgard without someone trustworthy to vouch for him. In the mean time he needs to get his plan back on track. Making his way back to the stream, he cups his hands in the water and stands before moving his hands out to the side. The water stays floating independently and a wave of his hand turns it into a round sheet of ice. Whispering a long memorized scrying spell, he smiles when a familiar face appears.

"Amora," He greets with a smile and a nod. The sorceress smiles in return, the muffled sounds of her surroundings filtering through the spell.

"Loki, dear, it's been far too long." She purrs, eyes glittering. "What can I do for a prince of Asgard?"

"I think the better question is what you can do for an old friend." Loki corrects and she pouts, but leans closer to her end of the scrying portal in interest. "I've found myself stuck in a rather unpleasant situation and would appreciate it if you would aid me in escaping."

She lets out a loud laugh at that and Loki waits her out. Amora has always loved it when Loki managed to work himself into a corner, but he knows that she loves the prospect of mischief much more and he plans to give her an unending supply of it. "What would I get in return for such a favor?" She asks, still chuckling a little.

"The ability to say that you aided in the destruction of a Titan." Loki tells her and her eyes narrow in a predatory sort of way.

"Do go on." She urges. So he does and by the time he's done outlining his plans, she's smiling like a wolf, eyes calculating.

"There is an element of risk, I'll admit, but I think you'll find it well worth your while." He tells her and she shoots him a disappointed look.

"You've certainly changed in my time away from Asgard if you think I'd be put off by a few risks, Loki. But I'll excuse you this once, since it's obvious that you're working with less favor than you're used to. Do you intend to start now?"

"No, but soon. I still have a mortal to deal with, but once he does what I want him to we'll begin. I'll contact you again." He tells her and once she nods, he ends the spell and begins another. This time the face that appears is that of Stark, tense even while asleep in a way that tells Loki the mortal is suffering from a nightmare. "I have need of you." He tells the image softly and Tony's face relaxes. He waves his hand again and the sheet of ice drops, shattering before it thaws back to water on the pebbled ground below. Stark arrives not soon after, looking tired but relieved.

"Thank you," is the first thing he says and Loki raises a brow.

"Whatever for?" He asks and the mortal blinks at him for a moment before releasing a snort.

"Forget it." He looks around. At what, Loki doesn't know. The forest around them is unassuming and he hasn't ventured far from the stream, nor does he intend to, so all of this should be familiar. "Thor returned from Asgard today. Apparently, you're all part of some big Armageddon prophecy. Well, you and your kids mostly." He says and Loki feels anger bubble up in him. His magic rises in turn, wild at the fury the mention of his children has brought up. How dare such a puny little being assume to know anything about them?

"That is an asinine story thought up by senile old men and retold with the purpose of slander." He growls, magic crackling at the tips of his fingers. He was a fool to think that a human could ever be useful to him, especially one so foolish as to listen to stories and believe them truth. "You know absolutely nothing about my children, nor the trials they have been through. So shut your mouth before I rip your foolish tongue from your head."

Stark doesn't, but he does hold up his hands in a placating gesture. "Calm down, I never said I believed it."

"And why wouldn't you?" Loki asks, watching the man closely for any sign of falsehood. "What reason would you have to believe that my children aren't the monsters that Asgard has made them out to be?"

"Are you?" The mortal interrupts and Loki's rage vanishes as quickly as it had come, leaving him impossibly tired. "That's what I thought." He continues. "I'm not going to think the worst of a bunch of kids just because an old man with a big chair and a title said so." He sounds offended and Loki considers revising his opinion of him after all.

"The word of the All-Father isn't good enough for you?" He sneers and Stark laughs, sharp and bitter.

"No one's word is good enough for me, especially if I have no reason to trust them. I've been fucked over enough to have better common sense than that." He tells Loki and the god hums. "I'm a firm believer of making your own destiny, even if you're...you."

Loki lets out a laugh. "Oh really?" He asks and the mortal rubs the back of his neck.

"Look, I may not believe the whole Prophecy of Doom thing, but that doesn't mean I trust you. If I'm going to tell your brother anything, I'm going to need more than 'You're brother told me so'. I need proof, actual tangible proof, not say-so." He tells the god, because Loki is still the God of Lies. He's practically the poster-boy of the trickster archetype and Tony would be stupid to believe anything he says without a healthy grain of salt. "So if you have any, now would be the time to show me."

Proof? That, Loki can do, even if he'd rather not. There's nothing pleasant about his time spent in the Void between worlds, nothing that he wants to relive just for the sake of credibility. He knew, even when he first thought up his plan to rid the whole of existence of Thanos' presence, that he might have to share his experiences, but never this soon. Stark must see it in his eyes, but he makes no comment on it, so Loki gathers his magic in preparation of a spell he hasn't used in far too long. The forest around them slowly bleeds away to be replaced by the blunt scenery of the Chitauri homeworld and he glances at the mortal out of the corner of his eye in time to see him shudder. Then his attention snaps to the figure kneeling before a macabre throne made of bone and rock.

He looks younger here, hurt and weak, and the thought makes anger curl in his gut. He ignores the mortal beside him and focuses on his memory-self, watching as Asgard's fallen prince breathes raggedly. There are scars marring his body, not quite healed but no longer bleeding freely. The one that catches his eye in particular is the nearly black bruise on his back where his spine had been snapped like a twig under a boot. He hears the mortal say something, but he can't make it out, too focused on the hulking figure that leaves the throne to stand before his former self.

"And so the prince kneels." Thanos says, voice echoing across the empty land around them, and he feels Tony startle beside him. He had done much the same the first time he met the Titan, wary after his fall but much too proud even then to show outright fear. "You godlings are so small, filled with pride and self-importance, when all it takes is a hard push to make you crumble."

"I believe you and I have a very different definition of 'push'." He tells the Titan and Thanos laughs.

"Of course, forgive me." He says, walking around the kneeling prince with a steady pace. His armor clinks as he moves, a relic of a time when Asgard was still in it's infancy. "I have a task for you, godling. There is an artifact on Midgard that belonged to me a long time ago. I would like for you to get it for me."

"And if I don't?" His memory asks and Loki tenses in preparation for the blow he knows is coming. It snaps his head to the side, loud and harsh in a way that sends a phantom ache through his jaw. He knows that the bone there was shattered and suppresses the urge to shiver.

"If you don't, I return you to the Other until you change your weak little mind." Thanos promises and a shudder wracks the prince before him, revulsion plain on his face even from here. "I thought not. You are not stupid, little prince, not by far. You just need to know your place."

"I've been told my place far too many times in my life, I do not need the reminder." His younger self snarls and instead of another blow Thanos only smiles. The prince is like a dog biting at a too tight collar, but the Titan knows that if he gives that leash just enough slack he'll bite any hand that comes close in anger and fear. It's glorious really, how the strong can become so weak once they truly see what Power is.

"Then you'll have no problem ruling by my side as my general." Thanos tells him, his voice a facsimile of kindness, like a man talking to a beloved pet. "Who would question the place of a Titan's right hand?"

"No one." Loki replies, a glimmer of hope in pain filled eyes and the God of Lies curls his lip in distaste now. How weak was he, to cater to the whims of a mad man? With a disgusted noise he vanishes the memory and turns to Stark.

"That was Thanos, the Mad Titan." He informs him and the mortal nods, eyes still a little too wide. "He's an insane yet incredibly powerful being that was alive before you mortals were even a thought in the universe. Odin's father, Bor, banished him to the far spaces of the Galaxy after he successfully managed to destroy half of existence in a bid for Lady Death."

"That's... insane." Stark breathes and Loki nods.

"Yes, it really is." The god agrees. "I plan to rid the universe of his presence, but for that I need your help." He pauses and looks the inventor over for a long moment. "If you are up to it, that is."

Stark gives a sharp laugh and rubs his palms over his face. "I am, fuck, I really am. Now explain whatever you're planning to me so I can tell you whether or not you're wasting both of our time." He commands and Loki does. He leaves out a few things of course, because it wouldn't do for the mortal to know everything. The inventor stays silent for most of it, but interrupts every once in a while to offer his own insight. Loki files the ideas away for later consideration, but even now he can tell that they may be useful. Once he's done he expects Tony to be satisfied, but the mortal surprises him further.

"If you plan on getting the team on your side, you'll need to show them that. In the meantime, I'll see what I can do." He promises. "I'm not sure about the Infinity Gems, but I can definitely build the Avengers up."

"Leave the Gems to me. Once I've built up my own allies, I'll find you. When that time comes, however, I will need you to speak in my favor to your teammates. No matter what proof I have, they will still trust the judgement of one of their own more than anything I can show them" Loki tells him and the man looks thoughtful for a moment before nodding.

"As long as you don't give me a reason to kick your ass, then you won't have to worry about me double crossing you. If you are lying about all of this, however, I'll make you wish you never left this forest."

Loki nods. "I have no intention of betraying your trust. Now rest and do as I asked." He commands and Tony abruptly vanishes, a half-formed curse echoing in the air after him. Now that he's gone, Loki closes his eyes and lets out a sigh before opening them and turning to a nearby tree. "You can drop the spell now, dear."

Amora does and steps forward over the foliage of the forest floor with leonine grace. She opens her mouth to speak, then closes it with a grimace when no sound comes out.  _'How infuriating.'_ She sends to him and he gives her a wan smile.

_'Quite.'_ He agrees.  _'If you wouldn't mind too much, I've long grown tired of this place.'_

_'Of course,'_  Amora replies and steps closer before gathering her magic and transporting them away from the Isle. They arrive in a city that Loki recognizes immediately and he turns to Amora with an inquisitive look.

"What? I have an apartment here, believe it or not." She tells him and Loki shakes his head.

"It will do." He assures her as he looks over New York with interest. It will do just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, this is NOT a Ragnarok story. I mention it, because it is an important part to Loki's character but it's not the end game. In this story, it's a prophecy that's been changed in order for Odin to sow enmity between Loki and Thor, because he can't have the future king of Asgard galavanting the universe in the hopes of redeeming his brother. To Odin, Loki outgrew his usefulness in the events of the first Thor, so if he can get Thor to let his brother go, the more the merrier.


	4. Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amora is a great host, Skurge and Loki don't get along, Tony tells Thor about Loki, and Hela has a long needed talk with her uncle.

"Home, sweet home!" Amora announces as she unlocks and opens the door of her apartment and pushes Loki ahead of her. The god is in her female form, something Amora hasn't seen in a long time. She's shorter than her male version, with waved black hair and ample curves, but her eyes are still the sharp emerald green that Amora remembers. As she watches, Loki looks around at the spacious apartment and although she doesn't say anything, the sorceress knows she's impressed. "There's a bathroom on the first right in the hall and a spare bedroom just after that."

Loki nods, "My thanks, Amora." She tells her friend and proceeds to venture down the hall. Amora stops her before she enters the bathroom and brushes her hair from her face to look her in the eyes.

"You do not need to thank me. I know what magical exhaustions looks like; far better than most, in fact. Bathe and change, I'll have food by the time you're done." She tells her and bends to place a kiss to her forehead. "I have missed you, my friend."

"And I, you." Loki tells her with a smile, before disappearing into the bathroom. Amora listens for the sound of water before she leaves the hall and goes to her own room to grab a few clothes. While Loki may not be petite in her current form, she's still a good few inches shorter than Amora. The clothes won't fit properly, but they'll have to do until they have the chance to go shopping for suitable Midgardian attire. Placing the clothes on the floor outside the bathroom door, she grabs her purse and leaves the apartment once more.

"Good morning, Christine!" A voice calls from the elevator down the hall and Amora turns to them with a grin.

"Miles, it's so good to see you. How's Jessica?" She asks him as he makes his way down the hall and the teen grins at her.

"Still telling me what to do, but eh, she means well, ya' know?"

Amora nods. "Of course. I might have some sympathy for her after recent events."

Miles cocks an eyebrow at her. "Oh really? You have a super awesome friend that ends up in trouble when he doesn't mean to?"

"Something like that." She laughs. "Although she's not quite as young as you."

"Hey, I'm eighteen!" He tells her, voice offended and she laughs even more.

"Once you can legally drink, I'll stop thinking of you as a kid." She tells him as she walks past, pushing on his shoulder lightly. "Kid."

He gives a long-suffering sigh before smiling shyly. "Maybe I'll meet her sometime, eh?"

"Maybe." She tells him and waves as the doors to the elevator begins to close behind her. He waves back before shouldering his schoolbag, and then he's out of sight. "Such an adorable little hero." She hums to herself as the elevator descends to the lobby. It opens with a ding and she makes her way back out onto the streets. There are people everywhere, going every which way, and while it's much more crowded than Asgard, she relishes the anonymity that it gives her. In a city of millions, she's just another face and while it may have irritated her when she was younger, she welcomes it now.

She buys a few orders of food from her favorite restaurant, then thinks for a moment and puts in for another order of Kung Pow Chicken. She watches the city from the restaurant until the door opens with the tinkle of bells. The man that walks in is tall and built like a wrestler, with tanned skin and sharp brown eyes.

"Hans, sweety." She calls and Skurge turns toward her before making his way to her table. He takes a seat when she motions for him to and she lays a hand on his forearm atop the table. "I ordered your favorite." She tells him and frowns when he only nods.

"What need did you have of me, my Lady?" He finally asks and her frown morphs into a pout.

"One day I'll teach you to enjoy life a little more." She sighs and gets up as her number is called. Handing the bags to him, she walks into the bustling crowd outside. The mortals part around her and Skurge like river water around a rock and she sighs. While she cares for Skurge a great amount, he is a little too conspicuous for her tastes, especially in a realm that has no knowledge that giants actually exist. "I've invited a guest over." She tells him and he looks at her out of the corner of his eye.

"An enemy?" He asks and she chuckles.

"Oh, Norns no. At least, not to us dear." She walks around a group of businessmen in her path. "You remember Loki, don't you?"

Skurge's hands tighten around the bags and the shriek of bending styrofoam cuts through the air like a knife. She hopes the food survived. "The Trickster is in your home?" He asks, anger rumbling through his voice and she tuts.

"Yes, and she is here with my invitation, so no funny business." She tells him and he gives her a droll look at her word choice. "I called you so that you could be included into our plans. She hasn't told me much, but I would rather have you here and willing to give me your aid than back in Alfheim."

"Then I will do as you wish, Enchantress." He tells her, even though he doesn't look happy about it. Laying a hand on his arm, she stills him and pulls him down to place kiss on his cheek.

"You are my dearest friend, Skurge. Do not ever fear to tell me when you are unhappy." She admonishes and he dips his head in acknowledgement. They continue walking and soon enough they reach her apartment building. The desk woman nods to her and Skurge before going back to her phone call and Amora waves in return. The ride up to her floor is a quiet one, but once they're in her apartment she catches sight of Loki and nearly collapses into peals of laughter. Even Skurge looks amused, although it wouldn't be apparent to anyone but the Enchantress.

"I am well aware that I look ridiculous, Amora." Loki sniffs, tugging on her oversized shirt. It doesn't exactly billow around her like a man's shirt would, but it's still much too loose. That, coupled with sweatpants that the Trickster had had to roll along the waist and ankles, paints a unique image. She's never seen Loki so domesticated, but she refrains from pointing it out.

"I didn't say anything." Amora replies and Loki glares at her, although there isn't really any heat behind the expression. Skurge closes the door behind them and Loki's attention immediate snaps to him.

"What a pleasant surprise." Her words suggest it's anything but and Amora shoots her a warning glance. "Do not look at me so, dear, I have no intention of invoking your... pet's wrath."

Amora narrows her eyes at her. "You would do well to remember that he is my friend as well." She tells her, voice curt and Loki gives a small bow.

"Of course, forgive me." She says and takes the bags from the half-giant with a smile. "It is good to see you again, Skurge."

"I cannot say the same." He replies and Amora throws her hands up in frustration before snatching the food from Loki and making her way to the kitchen. There's enough room for a small, four-person table and she begins laying her purchases out on it. Loki and Skurge arrive as she's digging around for the plastic utensils that Midgardians seem to favor. They shoot each other nasty looks and Amora ignores them, because really, could they not act like children? Eventually they finish their silent war and Loki sits in the chair closest to the window, listening to the sounds of the city below. Amora hands her the Gan Guo, well knowing her friend's love for spicy food after a long ago visit to Vanaheim. Loki thanks her and picks up a pair of chopsticks before beginning to eat. Skurge does the same, although he and Amora choose forks instead.

"Stark has promised to aid me in preparing Midgard's heros for the coming war." Loki tells them once she's midway through her meal. "While I have no doubt that he'll do an admirable job, I wish to gather a few allies myself. He told me that one of their own had wandered off in their last battle and I would greatly appreciate your help in bringing him back now that you are here, Skurge." She tells the giant and he nods. "Amora, if you could find a way into SHIELD it would make things a lot easier for us. I, in turn, will see what heroes are available to me here in New York before venturing farther."

"You won't have to look far." Amora informs her. "One lives down the hall."

Loki freezes with a pepper halfway to her mouth. When Amora wrinkles her nose at her, she quickly eats it and sits her chopsticks down. "How convenient." She says finally and Amora smiles.

"You've known me for nearly two thousand years, Loki. You should know by now that I love to surround myself by powerful things." She scolds the other sorceress. "New York has the largest population of super heroes in the world. If you know where to look for them, that is."

"No wonder you have an apartment here." Loki murmurs before continuing to eat. Her exhaustion is starting to catch up with her and although her food is spicy enough to make her eyes water, it's starting to taste like sand on her tongue. Hiding a yawn behind her hand, she stands and packs up the remainder of her food before walking it over to the refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen. "I believe it's time for me to retire. I forgot to mention before, but the man you're looking for, Skurge, is Bruce Banner and he has a rather nasty side so please refrain from... provoking him."

Skurge dips his head in acknowledgement as he finishes the last of his food. "I will keep your words in mind." He assures her and she turns to go to her bedroom. Looking after her, Amora narrows her eyes.

"She is much too tired for someone who went through what she described to me." Amora comments and Skurge studies the door that the Trickster went through, fork clampsed in one large hand.

"Do you think she is lying to you?" He inquires but his mistress shakes her head.

"No, I think her magic was drained incredibly low and never had the time to recover. Whether that was while she visited Helheim or when Odin confronted her, I know not, and I doubt she does either. It would be best now for her to rest and rebuild." She tells him and he nods before grabbing the extra order of Kung Pow and digging in. Amora goes back to her own food and they eat in silence.

...

"Friday, please ask Thor to come up to the third level lab." Tony tells his AI and turns back to the plans for his new suit. He's been trying to design a better version of the Mark 42 for a while now, with different chips and better alignment. The last version was a complete failure in stressful situations, but he doesn't want to scrap the entire idea. Looking over the blueprints that he has laid out on the workbench in front of him, he reaches out and erases a section of them with a flick of his wrist. Then a thought occurs to him and his head shoots up. "Tell Thor to leave his hammer upstairs."

"Of course, sir." She replies and Tony sighs. He misses Jarvis immensely. While Friday is great, he did design her after all, she doesn't have the spark that Jarvis had. There's no snark or emotion, just compliance. He may have found Jarvis' humor annoying sometimes, but he never thought he'd miss it as much as he does. And oh, he does. He has no problem admitting that Jarvis was a friend, someone that had stayed with him when no one else could and the fact that the consequences of his actions had cost him that isn't lost on him. He'd been so set on protecting the  _people_  that he loved that he never took a moment to consider the constant voice of reason that Jarvis provided and because of that he'd lost one of his closest friends.

Letting out a frustrated noise, he trashes all of his blueprints and starts over. He's in the middle of sketching out a new armour concept when Thor knocks on the lab door. Waving him in, Tony has Friday save his files and sets down his stylus.

"You called, my friend?" Thor asks and Tony takes a moment to make sure that Mjolnir is absent before opening his mouth to reply. Then he snaps it shut, because how do you tell someone that their brother isn't actually dead and you never told them?

"Uh, yeah, you see... Your brother's not dead and we've kind of been dream walking and he impersonated your father on the throne before getting kicked into a magical forest and he told me to tell you to go talk to Hela." He blurts out, and how about that? He watches warily as Thor freezes, eyes going wide before darkening to nearly cobalt blue. How does he even do that?

"You mean to tell me that my brother has been alive this entire time?" Thor growls and makes an angry noise when Tony tries to reply. "You knew and you did not tell me? After all the time that I have spent looking for answers, looking for something to bring me peace after his death. And you told me nothing!"

"I know it sounds bad-" Tony tries and Thor clenches his fists until his knuckles shine white. "Okay, okay, it is bad. I fucked up, I know that, but I was only trying to help. I don't trust Loki and I know that even though he's your brother, you don't really trust him all that much either. So I wanted to make sure he wasn't just using me to get revenge on you."

"That does not change the fact that you kept my brother's existence from me, Man of Iron." The god replies sharply and jeez, this really isn't going well, is it?

"I was trying to help!" Tony snaps back and Thor full on glares at him.

"Trying to help is not the same as separating my brother from me. Odin has done the same all of our lives, but I did not think that the man I considered my friend would do so as well." Thor tells him and wow, way to hit someone where it'll hurt. "However, I do not wish to speak further with you at the moment. I will go see my niece, then I will go and find my brother, and if you try to deter me, Tony Stark, you will know the wrath of a god."

And with that, Thor leaves, taking with him the sharp smell of ozone that had begun to burn around him. Tony groans. "That could have definitely gone better."

"I wholeheartedly agree, sir." Friday replies and Tony goes still.

"Friday?" He asks cautiously.

"Yes, sir?"

"Did you just... snark at me?"

"I... am not sure, sir. I merely, I believe the correct term would be, spoke my mind." She tells him and he grins, sharp and bright before letting out a helpless laugh.

"I could kiss you right now." He tells her and she seems to pause, thinking over her reply.

"I would have to ask you to please not to, sir. Such an action would undoubtedly be uncomfortable for both of us."

 _Well, how about that?_  He thinks and goes back to work with a smile on his face, despite his conversation with Thor.

...

Thor lands before the gates of Helheim in a cyclone of variegated gold light. His cape billows around him like a blood stain in the air and he just pauses for a moment to breath through his anger. While he may not have the same relationship with his brother as he once had, he still cares for Loki. There's was a relationship built over thousands of years with blood, tears, and love. Even though Loki had changed a great deal, he was still the same man that had sacrificed himself in battle for him and Jane. He was still the boy, deep down inside, that would weave spells around them as they ran through Asgard's halls, eager for adventure before they were even handed their first weapons.

And to think a mortal had thought it necessary to keep that from him made his blood boil. Stark was a friend and an ally, a man who had seen fit to offer him condolences when no one but Jane had. He doesn't think back to Selvig's relieved "Thank God" upon his learning of his brother's death, but he knows that many others had felt the same. Except Tony, who had received the news in silence before making a valiant attempt at getting Thor drunk.

Shaking his head, he begins to walk, knowing that Hela would disapprove of him flying into her kingdom unannounced. His niece was strict in that regard, ruling with a steady hand that Thor had once wondered about. Then he thinks about his initial return to Asgard after the events with Malekith and wonders why he ever thought such a thing. Like he had told Odin -or had it been Loki in his place?- his brother understood ruling better than Thor knew he ever could. While Loki had been raised as his right hand, a position Thor had once foolishly thought Loki held with pride, Thor had been raised as the crown prince. He knows nothing of ruling beyond what he was taught, and even now it's not enough.

"You seem lost in thought, uncle." Hela interrupts him quietly, falling into step beside him and Thor can only nod.

"Aye, I have recently heard troubling news." He tells her and she takes his hand and turns him to face her.

"You know of father's resurrection?" She asks, searching his eyes with a downward tilt of her lips.

"And his punishment." He agrees and her eyes widen in surprise. "You did not know?"

"I knew that he returned to Asgard to shield you from Odin's wrath." She murmurs. "But nothing of a punishment."

"According to a... friend, Loki was banished to a forest by your grand-father."

"Your father, Thor." She corrects. "The All-Father has long since lost his claim to me or my brothers, especially as family. Now come."

Thor does as commanded, tightening his hold on her hand until she squeezes back. She is regal here in her kingdom, and Thor once again thinks back to his brother and how well he must have taught her after Odin passed his sentence upon her. They arrive in her palace between one step and the next, stone walls replacing the low mountains around them, and Thor pauses a moment to bow to the fallen warriors standing guard inside it's doors. They do not bow back, but their eyes track his movements and when he turns to Hela, she is smiling. "Not many of my visitors take the time to show them respect." She tells him and his brows furrow.

"Surely all should have the sense to thank past warriors for their deeds." He replies and her smile turns sad.

"They will sing them praises outside of this realm and retell their stories until they fade over time," She corrects, looking at her warriors with fondness. "But they will not stoop to bowing for the dead."

She leads him to a grand room with a diaz at it's center, filled with silvery water and encrusted in precious gems. Dipping two fingers into the basin, she swirls the water and whispers a spell, power gathering around her in the shifting of the air. It makes the hair of Thor's arms prickle uncomfortably but he does not interrupt. Removing her fingers, she leans closer as the water flashes and goes still, leaving behind an image of a raven-haired woman sleeping among ivy green blankets.

"Ah, I suppose I will have to call her mother now." Hela murmurs and Thor smiles despite himself. He studies the image, noting his brother's -sister's?- ashen skin and the bags beneath her eyes. He's only seen her in such a state once and even then Loki had not had the control over his magic that he does now.

"What has happened?" He wonders but Hela shakes her head.

"I do not know, but we will find out." She replies and runs a finger over the ruby on the northern side of the basin. It glows briefly and the image changes, going backwards until she presses the emerald to it's right. The image settles upon Thor's conversation with Odin in Asgard some weeks ago and the Thunder God opens his mouth to speak but Hela shushes him with a hissed, "Just wait."

So Thor does, eyes going wide as Loki drops his illusion of Odin and proceeds to repair the Great Hall. They watch in silence as he goes through Asgard, fixing the kingdom of all the destruction wrought by the battle with Malekith and his army. He repairs the damage done to the Bifrost with Heimdall, who watches him out of the corner of his eye with a frown on his face. Over a period of minutes, hours, days Asgard becomes whole once more under Loki's hand and Thor wonders why Loki feels the need to help a Realm that he doesn't even consider his home. And when Odin appears in the middle of the peace talks to banish Loki in a flash of light, Thor has to clench his fists because his brother is doing good, but The All-father refuses to see it. He thinks back on Odin's words to him, about how he had changed since last they talked. It makes sense to him now, just as he suspected it would. Before he had been foolish enough to believe that Loki had no reason to hate the Aesir and their culture, but now he thinks he is beginning to understand. How he would've felt in Loki's place, he does not know, but he promises himself that he'll never be so blind again.

He watches as Loki and Stark spar with words, jaw clenching in anger at Tony's harsh words, even if he understands the need for them. He would not have trusted Loki in his place, not then. Now, he's not so sure. It continues as such, until Loki shows the inventor a memory of his time in the Void and Thor must step away to breathe.

"We left him to such a fate." He says, horror rolling through him like a current, and thunder rumbles along the ceiling.

"You could not know." Hela tells him, but her words do not bring him peace. Surely Odin would have known, from the seat of Hlidskjalf where he could see all, surely he could have seen that Loki needed their help. The thought fans the fire of his anger further and before he knows it, he's leaving the hall, lightning crackling in his steps. "Thor!"

He ignores her call, calling his hammer to him instead, until she grabs a handful of his cloak and pulls him to a stop with surprising strength. "Wait, damn you."

"Now would not be a good time to get in my way." He warns her and she lets out a sharp laugh.

"Or what? You will not strike me uncle, not here, not ever, so choose your actions wisely if you value your soul." She tells him, a dangerous note to her voice. It echoes through the halls around them, like the snarling of wolves, carried along by her power as it is. The guards around them stand straighter and she shoots them an annoyed look. "Stand down, he will not do me harm." She turns to him. "Will you?"

"No," He replies, shocked. He would never. "I have never lain a hand on you and I never will."

"Then calm your anger before you storm off and do something you'll regret." She shoots back, voice rigid with command. "Loki needs you clearheaded enough to help her and right now, you are nowhere near that."

Taking in a deep breath, he lets it out and his muscles relax along with it. His mind is not clear, not by far, but his thoughts are not the raging tempest that they were moments ago. His niece smiles up at him before nodding and bringing him back to the scrying room. Going to the basin, she whispers a few words of power and taps the sapphire on it's rim. "If you wish to find him, it would be best to know where he is, would it not?" She asks and he concedes with a dip of his head.

The water of the basin changes again, flashing green-gold this time before Amora swims into view. "Hela, I hoped you would try to contact me soon." She greets. "Is Thor there?"

"I am here, Enchantress." He tells her and she frowns at him.

"You're still mad about that little soul debacle, aren't you?"

Hela lets out a sigh. "You stole his soul, Amora." She reminds the sorceress.

"I gave it back." Amora protests and Thor resists the urge to tell her to be silent.

"We have not contacted you to fight, Amora." He tells her and she glares at him.

"Of course, you want to know about Loki." Her voice is laced with venom and Thor clenches his jaw. He and Amora have never seen eye to eye. She had wanted a love he was not ready or willing to give her and she had never forgiven him for it. He has no doubt that she thought of their pasts differently, but to him Amora had always been the friend of Loki's that set off all of his instincts. She's powerful, cunning, and beautiful, and he knows that she has no problem using those attributes to get whatever she wants. At a time, he had been one of those things, but that is not the case any longer. Now she hates him and he cannot say the sentiment is not shared.

"I would greatly appreciate it if you could tell us where he is." Hela interrupts his thoughts and he focuses on the Enchantress in time to see her nod. She tells them that Loki is staying in her apartment before giving them the address, but before Hela can end the spell, she turns to Thor with a warning look.

"I have told you of her location out of trust." She tells him, voice cold. "Not for you, but for her. I will only warn you of this once, but if you harm her in any way I will hunt you down and flay you alive, brother or not. Do not make me regret the faith I have put in you, Odinson."

And with that, the scrying basin goes blank, having been closed from the opposite side. Hela stares at it for a moment before letting out a frustrated puff of air. "I would appreciate it if you would wait before leaving." She tells him, leading him back toward the palace doors. She vanishes abruptly and Thor turns to the guard beside him in the ensuing quiet, opens his mouth, then closes it again when the dead warrior narrows his eyes while gripping his battle axe tighter.

"I will stay silent then." He mumbles, shifting away.

"Don't mind him, Horik's just shy." Hela tells him as she returns dressed in Midgardian clothing. He frowns at the crown of flowers in her hair but says nothing as she takes his hand with a grin. It was time to see his brother, after all this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I hope this chapter didn't end too abruptly! My headcanon is that Hela and her brothers are very young by Aesir standers. While they are around five hundred years old (besides Sleipnir, who's a solid seven hundred and twenty-six!), they'd be around Pietro and Wanda's age in human years. That being said, Hela is very mature for her age, as a Queen, but she's still very free spirited. She enjoys flower crown and indie-inspired clothing, but can become every inch the centuries old queen when she needs to be.


	5. Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki gets a rude awakening, Thor puts his foot in his mouth, Matt and Claire find themselves burdened with an injured and mysterious woman, and Hela really doesn't think that Amora's taking anything seriously enough.

Loki doesn't wake up in the best of ways. Meaning to say, she wakes up with a splitting headache, light shining in her eyes, and the sound of two people screeching at each other in the outer room of the apartment. Throwing her blankets back with a snarl, she stumbles into the hall with a vengeance. "Would you please BE QUIET!" She yells and whoever decided it would be a good idea to shout this early in the morning goes silent. Then she sees who's actually in the living room, lets out a groan of dismay and walks right back into her room.

"Brother!" Thor calls after her, trying to follow only to have a door slam in his face. He tries to open the it but gets hit with enough magic to send him back into the opposite wall. Amora makes an outraged noise behind him. "I only wish to talk."

"And I do not, Thor." Loki replies, voice dismissive. "Go away."

Thor studies the door for a long moment before moving to sit beside it. "I will not, brother. I have much to talk to you about and you will not deter me in this."

The door opens enough for Loki to stick her head out and she glares at him. "I will not?" She asks, voice deadly and Hela lets out a loud sigh from down the hall. "I am not sure if you are aware of this Thor, but I am incredibly tired and do not have the patience nor temperament to guide you through a conversation right now."

Now it's Thor's turn to glare and for a moment they just stare at each other, eyes narrowed in anger. Then Loki lets out a snort and slams the door shut again. Turning to Hela, Thor gives her a pleading look but she just grins and holds up her hands.

"This is not my fight, Uncle." She tells him and he looks at Amora. She scoffs, grabs Hela's arm and abruptly vanishes. Thor sighs.

"I will not leave until I speak with you, brother." Thor says into the empty air of the hall. "I know that you do not wish to see me, but I ask that you hear me."

"I wish to do neither." Loki replies from the other side of the door and Thor smiles despite himself. No matter what may have happened between them, Loki is still his brother. Or rather sister, but that thought makes him uncomfortable. It is not natural among the Aesir for men to change their gender, not like it is here on Midgard, and even here it is frowned upon, although not as heavily.

"Then I will talk until you do." He tells her and moves to make himself comfortable. He sits his hammer to the left with a thud and stares at it for a long moment. "For the past few months I have been searching for answers to what happened to you after your Fall. I have searched Midgard over many times, looking for your scepter in hopes that it could bring me peace concerning your death. However, when I found it, I only gained more questions. I had visions concerning Asgard, visions that scared me to my very core, not out of fear for myself, but for fear that I would have to face the End without you by my side. You are my brother, as you have always been, and I have spent every day since your death trying to find closure where I had none. Odin told me of a prophecy, written long ago by the seers of old, about a day when you and your children would bring destruction to the Nine Realms."

"And you believe it." Loki says, but Thor shakes his head, even though she cannot see it.

"No, I did not." He tells her, voice soft and sad. "For how could I, when the man that Odin spoke of was the same one that was willing to sacrifice himself for my Lady Jane?"

There is a thud from the door and Thor imagines that Loki has chosen to sit down on it's other side. "Then you are a fool." Loki tells him and Thor looks down at his hands. "You are holding on to a memory that I never was. You have not yet realized that I was never your brother, not truly."

"Does blood mean so much to you, that you would disregard our entire lives?" Because, he can not. Loki may not agree, but he is his brother, as he has always been.

"Of course it does, you dull-witted ape!" Loki snaps back and the door vibrates beside Thor with crackling energy. "Frost giants are mindless, vicious monsters. Nothing good has ever come from them, and nothing ever will."

"Then what of Hela? What of Sleipnir and Fenrir and Jormungandr? Are the stories about them true, that they are monsters born of a mad prince?" He snaps back and Loki lets out a frustrated snarl from behind the door.

"Do not bring them into this, brother." She snaps back furiously. "You have no right."

"I have every right!" He shouts back, hands tightening into fists. "As long as you refuse to see the hypocrisy of your own words, I have every right in the world to question you. You cannot sit there and call them mindless monsters when you yourself are not!"

There is chilling silence for a long moment before the door opens and Loki looks down at him with cold green eyes. "Do not speak to me of hypocrisy, Thor Odinson. You who spoke of love and brotherhood in front of others, but denounced me while I sat in a cell. You who vowed to protect me for the rest of our lives, but left me to face untold horrors. You once said that you would slay every last Jotun, that you would hunt them down to extinction, but when I spoke of such things, you stopped me and threw me into Void."

"Do not twist the past, Loki." Thor warns her and her eyes go impossibly colder, like shards of green ice. "I never threw you into the Void between worlds."

"Then who destroyed the Bifrost?" She snarls back, face an ugly mix of anger. "It was not I who broke it in half and flung us over the edge."

"You were trying to wipe out an entire race!"

"Do not sit here and pretend that you would not have done the same if Odin had not banished you down to Midgard! You speak of my faults without recognizing your own, yet have the nerve to call me a hypocrite." She spits and Thor eyes go wide and hurt.

"I do not wish to fight with you." He finally says and she lets out a harsh laugh.

"Then you would not have come here." She tells him, before vanishing in a whirl of green-gold light. Thor looks at the spot where she had been for a long time before grabbing his hammer and rising from the ground. He leaves the apartment with heavy steps, not noticing the people around him until a familiar voice speaks up.

"What the hell are you doing over here, Thor?" Stark asks him, leaning over the door of his roofless car. He does not recall it's name, although he is sure that the man has told him.

"I could ask you the same." Thor replies with a frown and Tony grins at him.

"Business meeting with the company blood-suckers." He tells him and Thor frowns even more. Blood suckers? Tony must notice his confusion because he waves a hand. "Forget it. Just hop in before Mad Max over there decides to tail-end me."

Thor does so, sitting his hammer between his feet as Stark pulls away from the curb with a screech of tires against asphalt. "So... did you talk to your niece?"

"Yes," Thor tells him, looking over the city as it speeds past them. "She was most helpful in my search for Loki."

"So you found him?"

"Her." Thor corrects and braces an arm against the dashboard when Tony swurves in surprise.

"Loki's a woman?" Tony asks incredulously and Thor very nearly tells him to keep his eyes on the road. While he may survive the subsequent crash, he has no such delusions that the inventor would as well. Stark does not need the warning however, as he refocuses on the road with a hum of interest. "That's... new."

"Loki has had the ability to change his gender since a very early age, but yes, he has not done so in a long time."

"Is she hot?" Tony asks and Thor shoots him a look.

"Loki is a frost giant, Tony Stark, of course she is not hot." He reminds him and Tony lets out a delighted laugh.

"Not what I meant, but... Forget I said anything." He deflects and when Thor points out that he often does, Stark gives him an offended look, one hand coming up to clap over his heart. "I am hurt, really. It's like no one appreciates genius anymore."

"I think it is more of your personality, than your wits, my friend." Thor tells him and Tony gives him an ugly look before abruptly sobering.

"Look, I'm sorry that I kept Loki's resurrection from you." He says, hands tightening on the steering wheel. "I was trying to help, but... You had a right to know, even if I didn't think so at the time."

Thor studies him for a moment, noting the wary look in his eyes and abruptly realizes that Tony is worried that he'll leave. While the inventor may have plenty of people willing to vie for his attention, he does not have many that he enjoys being around as much as he does their team of of warriors. "I accept your apology." He assures him and the mortal lets out a sigh full of relief.

"Good, because you and I are going on a roadtrip and it would have sucked if you were over there glaring at me the whole time." Tony says with a blinding smile as he turns into JFK. Thor looks at the private jet pulling into view ahead of them and shoots Tony a look. "Okay, maybe not 'roadtrip', per se, but there is no way I'm driving anywhere when I have my own jet."

Thor just sighs.

...

Loki lands in a grubby alley with a gasp, magic fizzling weakly under her skin. It refuses to take her further, dumping her out of transport before she can reach Amora's specific magical signal and she curses her luck. She knows that she'll regret using it so soon, but she also knows that she would have murdered Thor if she looked at him for one moment longer.

"Arrogant fool!" She hisses as she unsuccessfully tries to get her magic to yield and she doesn't know if she's referring to herself or the man that so naively believes to be her brother. It struggles in return, protesting her treatment of her powers in a way that it hasn't since she was a child. She needs to find a locus, something for it latch onto and rebuild, before it eats her alive, but she knows of nowhere to look. New York is huge, and like every populated city, it is filled with more faux magic users than not. Leaning against the alley wall with a groan, she closes her eyes and feels for the tendrils of her magic, trying to bring them together like the threads of her mother's tapestries. They evade her, slipping through her hold like sand and she lets out a heavy breath before trying again, only to have her concentration broken by a noise not far from her. Opening her eyes, she spots a group of mortals not far from her and resists the urge to scream in annoyance.

"Lookey here, fellas." One of them calls to the other and Loki stands tall with a glare.

"I would suggest you turn around and walk away while you still can." She tells them and the first one laughs.

"I don't think you're in much of a position to threaten us, pretty lady." He replies with a mocking grin, glancing at the three men beside him with a pointed look. They gather around like a pack of rabid wolves and she scoffs.

"You do not know who you are speaking to." She warns and evades as one of them, the fire-haired one, moves to touch her.

"All I see is a scared girl in a place she shouldn't be." The ginger practically croons, stepping forward once more. "What about you boys?"

The rest of them make noises of agreement and the first one, a wiry man with cold eyes, seems to get fed up with small talk because he grabs at her arm in one quick movement. She punches him in the sternum with enough force to send him stumbling back, but not enough to down him. With a curse, he launches himself at her and she grabs his left arm, using his momentum to slam him into the wall behind her. He falls with a groan but before she even has time to breath, a pair of arms wrap around her in a crushing hold. Her magic lashes out before she can, sending him to the other side of the alley with a wet crunch, and her vision immediately whites out as pain rips through her very soul. Stumbling to her knees with a gasp, she dimmy notices the sounds of a scuffle from further down the alley and turns her head to see a man in a ridiculous red suit kick one of the men into a wall before turning to the other with a well aimed punch to the throat. The man makes a sharp gagging noise as he drops to his knees and the red man kicks him in the head. He drops to the ground with a thud and his friend makes an enraged noise, launching himself back into the fight.

Vision dimming, she watches as the Devil -she notes the two small horns upon his head with amusement- kicks his attacker in the stomach, grabs his head and brings it down to his knee with vicious force. Then he pauses, breathing heavily as he seems to listen to the air around them. "Are you okay?" He finally asks and Loki opens her mouth to ensure him that she is perfectly fine, thank you, but her body has other ideas. Pain tingles from her fingers to her arms and up into her heart.

"I..." She tries to gasp and the Devil runs toward her with a curse. "I will be."

"You need to get taken to a hospital." He tells her, picking her up with a grunt and her mind floods with horror.

"No!" She practically screams and he winces, freezing after he straightens up. "I can't go to any hospitals."

"Okay, no hospitals." He concedes softly and she wishes she could glare at him without her head trying to implode on itself. "Don't panic, okay, just breath."

I am not panicking, she tries to tell him but her lungs seize up in her chest, blocking off her words. That's not good, she thinks and then her vision blacks out, her body going slack in the red man's arms.

...

"Do you think they're okay?" Hela asks for possibly the hundredth time since they left and Amora lets out an annoyed sigh.

"None of my wards have gone off, so I would say yes." She replies and the Queen of Hel gives her an aggrieved look. "What? Your mother is a powerful mage, she can more than handle Thor, even on her own."

"Not while magically exhausted." Hela shoots back, then lowers her voice when an old woman looks at her funny. "They could be tearing each other apart."

"But they will not." Amora holds up a shirt. "What do you think of this?"

"She'll hate it." Hela deadpans, crossing her arms over her chest and Amora looks down at the shirt with a frown.

"You're right; it's much too sparkly for her tastes." She laments, sticking it back and continuing to shuffle through the clothes on the rack.

"Are you even listening to a word I'm saying?" Hela protests as Amora pulls out a black shirt with a flourish.

"Of course I am." She adds the garment to the stack on her arm. "You're just worrying too much. They love each other, despite what either of them have to say on the matter. That doesn't mean they won't fight like a pair of wild dogs, but they won't hurt each other."

"You can't know that!" Hela snaps and Amora turns to her with a hand on her hip.

"Sweety, I've known those two since before you were born. While Thor may be a complete idiot sometimes, he won't hurt you mother any more than he would hurt his own self. They will argue and bicker like the Fates, but they will not harm each other, at least not physically. Now go find your mom some pants." She tells her and Hela stalks off toward the pants section with a growl. Amora just smiles before pulling a forest green shirt with long gold-studded sleeves off the rack. She stares at for a moment, frown slipping from her face before adding it to her pile.

She continues going through the rack until she reaches the dresses, then decides that she's going to need one of those little baskets that Midgardians love to use while shopping. Throwing her collection into the basket, she turns to go back when one of the alerts for her wards flickers twice and goes out. Vanishing the clothes with a wave of her head, she runs over to where Hela is looking at a pair of flower-patterned legging and grabs her arm. "We have to go." She snaps and the younger goddess drops the leggings as she pulls her toward the women's bathroom. Pushing her into the large stall at the end, Amora wraps an arm around her shoulders and teleports them with a flash of green light.

The arrive in her apartment to find it empty and silent and Amora takes a moment to check over all her wards before letting out a dismayed noise. Hela watches her with a wary expression. "What happened?" She asks as Amora runs her hands through her hair in agitation.

The sorceress turns to her with a wild look in her eyes, flecks of gold flashing in them as her power pours out to search for the ward that went off. "You mother's protection ward just went out." She whispers, horror lacing her voice and Hela resolutely doesn't say I told you so.

...

When Claire Temple opens her door after a vague call from Matt, she expects to find him wounded and possibly bleeding on the other side. She's not expecting him to be perfectly fine, a ghostly pale woman clutched against his chest like a child. Staring at him for a long moment, she looks down at the woman, then back at him, then back at the woman before letting out a colorful string of curses.

Matt ignores her and shoulders his way in before laying the woman on the couch with a groan. "She's heavier than she looks." He explains and she gapes at him.

"What is she doing here?" She retorts. "What the hell happened?"

"Some thugs cornered her in an alley." He says, bending down to listen to her heart. "I took out two of them and she handled the other two before collapsing."

"So you brought her here?" She retorts helplessly, snatching her medical bag from the kitchen counter.

"She panicked when I mentioned the hospital." He tells her and Claire pushes him out of the way to crouch beside the couch.

"That doesn't mean bring her here, Matt. I'm a nurse, in case you've forgotten, not a doctor."

Matt turns to her with a pleading look, mask gathered against his shoulder blades. "She needed my help Claire and she obviously has a good reason to not want to go to one."

"Panicking is not a good reason. There's a word for that, but that doesn't mean you can bring every nosocomephobe you find into my apartment and dump them on my couch." She tells him, pulling out a stethoscope and placing the buds in her ears before pressing the end to the woman's chest.

"Could you just help her?" Matt asks in frustration and Claire pulls the stethoscope away with a loud sigh.

"What do you think I'm doing?" She snaps and Matt smiles at her. Rolling her eyes, she grabs a light pen and shines it into her charge's right eye before moving onto the left. "Her pupils are heavily dilated and her heart rate is way too high." She murmurs and turns to Matt. "Did you smell any drugs while you were carrying her?"

He shakes his head. "No, but I did smell... electricity."

"Like she was shocked by a taser?" She asks, lifting up the woman's shirt to look for any injuries.

"No, more like the ozone in the air when lightning strikes." He replies and Claire lets out a curse.

"There haven't been any lightning storms for a couple days, Matt." She sighs, pulling the shirt back down. "Help me turn her over so I can check her lungs."

"It wasn't lightning." Matt corrects, moving to do as she asks and Claire lets out a noise of frustration.

"That doesn't make any sense. You said you smelled ozone, but she couldn't have been hit by lightning any time recently."

"You think I don't know that? It wasn't just ozone. There's a smell on her that I can't place, like adrenaline and heat."

"Adrenaline, heat, and ozone? That's what she smells like to you?" She presses the stethoscope to the woman's back and frowns. "Her lungs aren't getting enough air." She informs him and he lowers her back onto her back so that she can shine the pen down her throat.

"That's-" Matt freezes. "She stopped breathing."

"What?!" Claire gasps, dropping the pen to begin chest compressions. "Hand me the air compressor." She orders and Matt grabs the bag and begins to root around in it. When his hand comes into contact with what he's looking for he pulls it out and holds it out to her but she makes a negative noise. "You're gonna have to do it. Just hold it over her mouth and nose and squeeze the air chamber."

Matt does as he's told, fitting it over the lower half of the woman's face and beginning to pump oxygen back into her lungs. His ears strain, listening as her heart beat begins to rapidly slow down. "It's not working." He says and Claire's voice gets harsher as she continues to count.

"It has to!" She snaps back but as Matt listens, the woman's heart beats twice and goes silent. He stops pumping, shock running through him as Claire continues pushing on the woman's chest.

"Claire," He tries, but she ignores him. "Claire! She's gone."

"I am not letting someone die on my couch." She snarls and Matt begins compressing the little plastic chamber again. They work in silence, outside the occasional grunt from Claire and Matt grabs her hand and presses it to the compressor before taking Claire's place. Locking his hands together, he raises them and brings them down against the woman's chest, tensing in preparation for the sound of cracking bones, but none come. Pain sings up his arms instead, making him grunt, and Claire stares at him wide-eyed.

Then the woman coughs, dragged in a ragged breath, and Claire slumps to the floor with a cry of relief. "Oh my god." She gasps helplessly. "Oh my god."

The woman on the couch opens her eyes with a frown, looks down at Claire curiously, then turns her head toward Matt. "Ah, the Devil." She mutters before collapsing back to the couch with a groan. "Where am I?"

"In an apartment in the lower side of Hell's Kitchen." Matt tells her and her frown deepens. "In New York."

"Ah," She smiles. "Good." She tries to sit up but Matt pushes her back down.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." He tells her and she opens her eyes again to give him an unimpressed look.

"I am perfectly capable of sitting on a couch properly." She huffs.

Claire gives her an incredulous look. "You just died!"

"Really?" The woman asks, turning to look at her. "How inconvenient."

"Inconvenient, she says." Claire scoffs. "Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Loki." She replies haughtily. "And I really shouldn't be here."

"Like the Norse god?" Matt asks and Loki gives him a beatific smile.

"Exactly like the Norse god." She says, straightening her baggy t-shirt. "Now if you would please allow me to get up, I'll be going on my way."

"I really think you should stay for a while." Matt tells her, ignoring Claire's snort of "No kidding." He holds out a hand to stop her, but instead of letting it deter her, she just takes a hold of his forearm and uses it to pull herself up. When she tries to walk past, Matt tightens his hold and she frowns at him.

"Unhand me." She growls and Matt shakes his head.

"Sit down." He commands and she jerks free of his hold.

"Or what?" She questions, taking a step into his personal space.

"Or nothing." Matt snaps back, then winces. "You're not well and you just died on my friend's couch. I don't think you should be trying to walk anywhere."

Glaring at him, she crosses her arms over her chest and sits. Claire eyes her warily as she begins repacking her medical bag. Then the air beside them flashes with blinding light and two more women appear, making Claire shriek in surprise. Matt stiffens, blinking at the sudden flare of yellow-orange that flashes across his vision.

"Mother!" The shorter one gasps, rushing to look Loki over as the taller one glares at the apartment's other two occupants. "What happened?"

"Nothing that should concern you, dear." Loki tells her and looks at the taller woman. "Amora, would you mind giving him a card?"

"Do you know what 'stay out of trouble' even means or is that phrase just a bunch of words to you?" The taller one huffs, but reaches out to lay a hand against Matt's temple. He freezes, muscles tightening as the cocktail of ozone-heat-adrenaline fills his senses again. "There."

Loki lets out a tired laugh and leans on the shorter woman as she rises again. "I will contact you." She tells Matt before reaching out and taking hold of the woman called Amora. They vanish in another flare of light and Claire stares after them with her mouth hanging open.

"What the HELL JUST HAPPENED?!" She shrieks and Matt shakes his head.

He doesn't know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took the next part of my outline and threw it off a cliff, but I think I like it. What do you think of Matt and Claire? Oh, and if any of you are wondering what Lady!Loki, Amora, or Loki's kids look like, here you go:
> 
> <http://checkerboardom.tumblr.com/post/119750668570/amora-lady-loki-and-lokis-kids-for-my-story-the>  
> 
> 
> \--My headcannon is that Fenrir and Hela inherited Angrboda's brown eyes, while Fenrir and Jormungandr got her brown hair. Jormungandr got Loki's height, has sea-green eyes and likes to bleach his hair blonde, while Sleipnir kept both Loki's hair and eye color. 


	6. Fights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki puts her foot down, Tony puts his foot in his mouth, Amora "infiltrates" SHIELD, and Bruce Banner gets mad.

When Amora and Hela get back to the apartment, the Enchantress makes a beeline straight for Loki's room and deposits her on the bed. Loki sags into the plush green blankets with a sigh of relief and blinks as Amora lays a hand on her forehead.

"You're burning up." Amora tells her and turns to Hela. "Go get the box from under my bed."

"How ironic." Loki comments with a chuckle and Hela pauses to look at her with worry painted plain across her face before doing as she's told. She returns moments later, carrying a wooden coffer with intricate designs carved into its sides and Amora takes it from her, sitting down on the bed beside the exhausted goddess.

"Will she be okay?" Hela asks as Amora whispers a spell to unlock it and begins digging through it.

"In time." Amora makes a noise of triumph and pulls out a glowing gold gem. "She used up the last drop of the magic that she had, like an idiot." She gives Loki a pointed look. "But, I can work on restoring some of it from my own spare reserves. It won't last for long, but it'll have to do until we can find a magic user that's attuned more to Midgard's particular brand of Power."

"Then you shouldn't be wasting your time here, Amora." Loki objects and when the Enchantress looks at her with outrage in her eyes, she smiles. "I can assure you that I know how to use a power crystal. Hela and I can work on restoring my powers, but I need you in SHIELD. They have an extensive database; I'm sure there will be a note on a powerful mage here on Midgard somewhere in their systems."

Amora studies her for a moment, ivy green eyes searching emerald, before she finally nods. "You will contact me if anything happens." She orders as she stands and Loki dips her head in assurance. Giving her one final calculating look, Amora gathers her magic around herself and vanishes in a flash of green.

Hela looks after her for a moment before turning to Loki. "What's the real reason that you wanted her to leave?" She asks.

"Who says that wasn't the real reason?" Loki replies and Hela crosses her arms. "If it makes you feel any better, I want you to leave too."

The Queen of Helheim gapes at her, eyes going wide. "Are you serious? Why?!"

"Because you are a Queen and you have spent too much time away from your Realm and your subjects." Loki tells her and Hela's face goes red in anger.

"You cannot order me around like a child! I need to be here." Her daughter snaps back.

"You do not need to, you want to, Hela, there is a difference." Loki says sternly and Hela's face falls. "I do not say these to hurt you. When Odin installed you upon Helheim's throne he meant it as a punishment, as a way to keep you out of sight. You grew into your title in spite of that and I will not have you throw all of that progress away now."

"I'm not throwing anything away! If the All-Father wanted me out of sight on Helheim, why are you trying to trap me there?" She demands, hurt, and Loki's eyes widen in stunned anger.

"Do not compare me to him, Hela," She growls, fingers clenching into the blanket under her. "We are nothing alike. All I have ever wanted for you was safety and happiness, which I cannot give you if you insist on getting caught up in my battles."

"You are my mother!" Her daughter exclaims. "I would gladly get caught up in all of your battles if it meant that I could stay by your side."

"I know you would," Loki sighs and pulls her close, brushing the hair back from the young queen's face. "Which is why I wish you to go. If something were to happen to you, because of me, I would never be able to forgive myself." She murmurs and Hela sniffs, blinking quickly to fend off any unwanted tears.

"I will not leave until your magic is restored." She says into her mother's shoulder and Loki seems to think about it for a moment before nodding.

"Fair enough. Now hand me all of Amora's spare crystals." She instructs and Hela grabs the box and does as she's told.

...

When Tony's jet lands at the Avenger's Mansion, Steve is waiting for him and Thor in the hangar with a disapproving look. "You couldn't have just driven?" He asks as Tony walks down the lowered stairs and the inventor gives him a smug look.

"Jet." He says, pointing at his private plane, then back at himself. "Billionaire."

Steve lets out a sigh. "Then why did you drive last time?"

"Because I wanted to show off my new car and make Rhodey jealous." He replies and holds out his phone toward Cap. "Say 'Hello Friday'."

"Hello Friday." Steve says, voice resigned.

"Good evening, Capsicle." The AI replies and the super soldier glares as Tony gives him a shit eating grin.

"Very funny." He deadpans and grabs the phone before Tony can shove it back into his pocket. "Friday, call me sir, Steve or Captain Rogers, okay?"

"Of course, sir." She replies and Steve tosses the phone back to the inventor as he leads the way into the mansion. Tony catches it with curse and gives the super soldier a dirty look behind his back. They walk in silence until they reach the communal area where the others are lounging around. Wanda takes one look at Tony and rises from her seat before disappearing from the room.

"Do you think it would help if I apologized?" Tony asks the room at large and Natasha studies him for a long moment before smiling.

"I think she'd turn your brain into a pulp if you tried." She tells him and Tony wrinkles his nose in disgust.

"She is suffering from grief," Vision says, looking at the door she had disappeared through. "I do not think your presence helps much in that regard."

"You used to like me." Tony tells him and Vision turns to look at him with a blank expression. They stare at each other for a long moment before the inventor clears his throat and looks pointedly at a wall. Steve eyes him with sad disapproval but Stark ignores him.

"Not that I'm not glad you've decided to help us with training," The super soldier finally says. "But what changed your mind?"

"Divine intervention." Tony replies. "I'm starting to remember why I'm an atheist though."

"Your doing?" Natasha asks Thor and the god opens his mouth, then closes it, shooting Tony a pleading look. Tony resists the urge to drop his face in his hands, because can Thor be any more obvious if he tried?

"Of course it was his doing." He lies and Natasha narrows her eyes at him. "What? He came at me with all his nobility and honor stuff. The whole shebang, really. It was very convincing."

She looks at Thor and he nods, smiling that big godly smile of his, all teeth and honest blue eyes. Tony's half convinced it's a trait of godhood, because no matter how many times he tries that same look on Pepper, she just frowns at him and tells him to get back to signing paperwork. Then again, it might not be, because he never remembers Loki looking at him like that.

"Well then," Steve says into the ensuing quiet and Tony sends him a thankful look. "I guess we'll start training again at six if everyone's up to it."

Natasha nods and Vision and Falcon wander out, even if Sam does shoot them a questioning look over his shoulder. Thor tries to follow them but the red-headed assassin grabs his arm and looks him in the eye for a long moment. "You and Tony are terrible liars." She tells him. "What's really going on?"

"Who said anything was going on?" Tony shoots back and she glares at him. "Stop that, you don't get to look at me like that."

"Tony," Steve sighs and the inventor shoots him an annoyed look.

"Why does anything have to be going on for me to want to be a part of the team? I got bored at home and I can't stand my lab at the moment. Can you really blame me for wanting a change of scenery?" He asks and Steve immediately looks guilty even if Natasha doesn't. She lets go of Thor's arm though.

"What happened in Asgard?" Steve asks as Thor sits his hammer down on the coffee table, clearly switching the topic. All of them know it, even if no one makes the mistake of pointing it out.

"My father assured me that the visions were of no concern to neither I nor the Nine Realms." Thor tells him, sitting down on the couch that Sam had vacated. Tony stands there for a moment, contemplating whether or not to join him, then decides that he's not going to hear anything new and makes his way to the elevator. Natasha follows him with a determined look on her face, moving to lean against the rail as the doors slide shut behind them. Once they're below ground, she reaches out and presses the emergency stop button.

"You know those are only for emergencies." Tony tells her and Natasha gives him a stern look.

"What are you hiding Tony?" She asks, crossing her arms in a way that would be intimidating if he didn't know her so well. Or, well, scratch that, it was more intimidating for that exact reason.

"Who says I'm hiding anything?" He deflects and she sighs.

"You last logged into your workshop less than twelve hours ago, so I really don't think your whole 'I can't stand my lab' is all that true." She says and Tony turns to her, mouth set in a thin line. Seriously? That's her argument for practically jumping down his throat since he arrived?

"How are you going to assume to know anything about how I feel?" He snaps back and her arms lower in surprise. "Just because you have your little fingers in my systems -which I specifically told SHIELD not to do, might I add- doesn't mean that you have any idea what's going on in my head. I created a murderous robot that tried to wipe out the entire human species in that lab, I killed one of my best friends in that lab, so you can't stand there and tell me I'm lying about anything that has to do with it. I can't go in there alone, not without seeing some fucked up M.P Lovecraft horror story every time I see a shadow."

"Tony," Natasha tries, but Tony just glares at her because he's on a roll now. He's so sick and tired of them doubting him, especially if none of them have the courage to confront him about it. He's a part of the team too, but they all seem to insist on treating him like a money donor that likes to play hero. Natasha doesn't get to play that game with him, especially after all the shit she pulled when they first met.

"And what makes it even worse is the fact that you drove off my lab partner." He adds out loud. "The only person on this team that stayed down there and worked with me to try and create something great. The only other person that thought of Jarvis as an actual sentient being. The only person that understood what it felt like to create something horrible when all we wanted was to keep the people we love safe and you-"

Natasha slaps him. "That's enough." She snaps and Tony's eyes go wide, a hand going up to press against his cheek. "You think I don't know what it means to sacrifice for the people I love? To do something that keeps me up at night, even though it was necessary? You're not the only one with skeletons in there closet, Tony."

"Nat..." He sighs, but she pushes the elevator button again and looks resolutely at the wall. There's tension lining her shoulders, like she's expecting someone to crack a whip against her back. Then Tony realizes that he just did, even if it wasn't intentional. He swallows the lump of guilt burning in his chest and reaches out before letting his hand fall back to his side. "I'm sorry."

She doesn't reply, not even to call him on what a bastard he's being, and Tony spends the rest of the elevator ride feeling like a piece of shit.

...

When Amora walks into SHIELD, she's wearing the appearance of Jessica Drew like a second skin. She's met the female super hero enough times to know her movements, but she can't say she enjoys the ridiculous cascade of black hair that the woman has. Her own blonde locks are chest length at most, much thinner, and nowhere near as heavy in comparison. Despite that, she can't say she dislikes her current form. It's curvy and laced with lean muscles that she's had the option to appreciating first hand, if not in the way she sometimes thinks about, much to her disappointment.

Then again, she's not sure if she'll ever get the chance with how little Jessica visits as of late. "Where are you, little spider?" She wonders aloud as she makes her way to one of the lifts. She needs to get to the system server rooms without being noticed, but if she can make it in and out of this building full of mortal bloodhounds without incident, she'll gladly take the opportunity. Of course that means no teleporting while she's in view of cameras, but she's successfully worked her way around worse in the past.

Humming softly as she presses the button to the glass and metal elevator, she takes a moment to look at the building around her. There are agents milling around like ants everywhere she looks, coming and going on their own important missions. In the center of the lobby is a giant eagle effigy, black and commanding even as the elevator lowers from its view. It's familiar in a way that makes her think of battle crests, and she supposes that it's fitting in a way. SHIELD is an organization of covert warriors in their own way, trained for battle and loyal to their King. Or queen; she's not at all sure which it is.

The elevator doors open with a ding, depositing her on a floor far below the ground level of the building. She walks confidently, sending out tendrils of magic to locate what she's looking for until one of them lands in a room and sends a flare of power through her mind. The door has a keypad on it along with a retinal scanner, but her disguise and a quick spell get those obstacles out of the way quickly enough. Paying mind to not look at any cameras within the room, she fishes a USB from her pocket and connects it the main computer terminal for the servers. It lights up with a green flash, her magic sweeping through the systems in search of any files that might contain what she needs.

While she's sure Loki expected her to play the long game and try to infiltrate SHIELD in a personal way, she has to admit that she likes this method much more. There's no room for human error here, no way for others to mess up her plans before she can get anything of use. She watches the computer screen, eyes intent on the documents that flash by at lightening pace. She has no doubt that SHIELD set up fail safes to keep their files secure but she's also completely sure that they didn't anticipate interference from magic when they set up those countermeasures. It's stunningly easy to get the information she's looking for, but not easy enough to make her suspicious of foul play. How these mortals survive without the most basic inkling of how to use the Power that the Norns graced their world with, she doesn't know, but she can't help but feel pity for them because of it.

Removing the USB, she vanishes it to a pocket of space for later retrieval and leaves the room. "Hello Jess." A voice says from her right and she turns to spy a woman with short brown hair and sharp blue eyes.

"Agent." She replies, walking past her and the woman quickly falls into step beside her.

"I have to say I wasn't expecting you back so soon." The agent tells her, clearly speaking of an event in Jessica's life that the sorceress has no knowledge of. Maybe that's why her neighbor had been so scarce as of late, she thinks, and Amora's magic flares in warning. Ignoring it, she smiles down at the woman warmly.

"What can I say? I work fast." She replies as the elevator arrives. The woman watches her with a frown as the doors begin to open.

"Good to hear," The agent says, smiling back before she whips out a gun. Amora's eyes widen just before a current of electricity jolts through her with a stunning amount of pain. Letting out a snarl of rage, Amora collects her magic around her but the agent pushes another button and she collapses, her illusion of Jessica fading away as she lays twitching on the floor. "The thing is, I work faster."

...

Maria stares at the woman she electrocuted through a pane of two-way glass with a frown on her face. She can't help but feel that the magic user can see her, especially when she looks her dead in the eye like she's doing now. One of her agents are interrogating her, but besides a blissful smile, the woman doesn't react to any of the questions she's asked. It's infuriating to say the least, and after an hour of it, the new SHIELD director is thoroughly fed up. Looking to the side, she notes the script running across the monitor there. The computer is transcribing everything that's said in the interrogation room, but there are still too many blanks there for her to feel anything other than dread.

Removing her gun from her hip, she sits it down on the table beside her, opens the door, and walks into the adjacent room, noting that the woman goes rigid, poison green eyes following her every movement.

"I was wondering when you'd turn up." She says as Maria grabs the file of photos on the table. They're all video stills of the woman's time in the Triskelion, starting from her entrance through the doors to the moment Maria tasered her in front of the elevator.

"I had other things to do." Hill replies and the woman laughs, sharp and bright in a way that grates on the director's nerves.

"Of course." She beams. "Standing in a room and glaring at me must be tedious work."

"I'm not sure that you should be smiling." Maria tells her, voice utterly calm and she receives a pout in return. Charming.

"I don't see why I should stop." The other woman replies and the SHIELD agent narrows her eyes at her.

"How about you just answer our questions?" She asks, crossing her arms atop the table as she leans on them.

The blonde smile only grows brighter as she leans forward, voice lowering into a seductive lilt. "And what? You'll let me go? Don't think you can fool me at this game."

"This isn't a game." Hill snaps back. "You broke into our base and stole our files. I want to know why."

"Sweety, when you've lived as long as I have, try telling me that your entire life isn't one big play at Clue. Until then," Her smile morphs into all teeth, wicked and dangerous in its beauty. "Don't assume that you have the upper hand on beings far more powerful than you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a friend in need of aid." Then she vanishes, leaving behind a scrap of paper with an elegant scrawl of words on it.

"My name is Amora the Enchantress, to answer one of your questions. P.S. Maybe next time you'll be faster, Director." Maria reads, looking down at the flowing green script. Then she lets out a curse and goes to make a call.

...

"Skurge," Amora calls as she appears not far from her old friend. "You'll never guess what a delight woman I just ran into."

"I'm a little busy at the moment, my lady." Skurge grunts as the huge green beast before him tries to crush him with one massive fist. Gripping his axe, he brings it around in a vicious arch but the Hulk bats it away with a roar and sweeps him through a tree. Stomping the ground, he lets out a bellow as Skurge picks himself back up, stepping over the remains of the old pine.

"Stay down, puny man!" He growls and Skurge lets out a rare laugh. It's a frightening sound, full of battle rage and blood lust as it is. Amora had missed it dearly.

"Not on your life, beast." The half-giant shouts back, running to his axe and drawing it back over his shoulder. He plants his feet into the grass beneath him and releases it and grins as it hits the green giant in the shoulder, sinking in as the massive being gives a cry of pain. Ripping it free, the Hulk tosses it aside again and charges at him with a ground shaking cry. Amora yawns and leans against a tree, watching as the two men dance around like vicious wolves before launching themselves at each other with battle cries

"Not that I don't love to see you fight, dear, but wouldn't it be easier to just knock him out." She drawls, distracting Skurge enough for the Hulk to grab him by his ankle and send him flying like a sack of grain. He lands with a force hard enough to send him plowing into the dirt not far from her until a tree slows him down. Its trunk splinters with a shriek and the whole thing falls with a mighty crash.

Glaring up at her, Skurge picks himself up and blinks the dirt from his eyes, ignoring the smears and cuts littering his body. "Be my guest, Enchantress." He welcomes and she smiles up at him as her hands glow green. Walking out from the treeline, she sends a burst of power at the enraged scientist. He turns to her with a snarl, like an angry bear and she merely grins in reply. Letting her magic bleed into the air around her, she directs it toward him, watching as his eyes begin to glow poison green before he slumps to the ground at her feet.

"That wasn't so hard." She calls toward Skurge and he snorts, coming forward to collect the now human-sized beast.

"You are a wicked woman." He tells her in reply, voice flat, and she lets out a peal of laughter, head thrown back as her shoulders shake with mirth. Checking to see that he has a firm hold on the unconscious scientist, she wraps a hand around her friend's arm and teleports them back to her apartment. Loki looks up at them from the book cradled in her lap, Hela fast asleep on the couch beside her, and cocks an eyebrow.

"It certainly seems like you had an eventful day." She says as Skurge drops Bruce into one of the overstuffed armchairs across from her.

"When don't we?" Amora asks and wanders into the kitchen in search of food. "I got the files we need, by the way."

Loki stares after her, blinking. "You were supposed to gain their trust and then get the files." She points out and Amora returns with a carton of strawberries cradled in one hand.

"I figured that my way would take a lot less time." She hums, biting into a berry with an expression of bliss. "We don't have much of it to spare, after all."

"We had enough." Loki tells her, grabbing a strawberry when Amora offers the carton over. It's sweet against her tongue and she nudges Hela awake to hand the rest of it over. Her daughter eats it with a yawn, before reaching out and snagging the rest of them from the blonde sorceress.

Amora turns to Skurge with a disapproving look. "Go take a shower and change. You're getting dirt all over my carpet." Skurge grumbles something vaguely insulting under his breath, but eventually he nods and leaves, tracking muddy footprints in his wake and the Enchantress sighs.

"So," Hela begins, looking at Bruce pointedly. "Who's the half naked guy over there?"

Loki studies the Avenger with a frown. "A potential ally." She tells her daughter and Hela nods, going back to the berries. A few minutes later, Bruce lets out a groan and sits up, hands pressing into his eyes before he looks around at his surroundings. Then he frowns, scrambling out his chair with a curse.

"Where am I? He asks, staring at Loki, even if he doesn't recognize her in this form. Then he looks at Amora and gapes. "What did you do?"

"I sent your beast to sleep before he could kill my friend." She tells him and he winces.

"Uh... Sorry?" He mumbles and the Enchantress smiles at him.

"There is no need to apologize, Bruce Banner. Skurge is more than capable of taking a few punches." Loki assures him and he frowns at her.

"Do I..." He shakes his head with a frustrated sound. "Do I know you?"

"Not in this form, but certainly by name." Loki replies. "You may remember me as a half-crazed god that opened a portal to space in New York around a year ago."

"Loki?" He blinks at her incredulously for a moment, then slumps back into unconsciousness. Loki turns to glare at Amora, who gives her an innocent smile in return.

"What? I saw green." She says and the Tricker lets out a long-suffering sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this update is so short! This was just one of those chapters that refused to be written. [Edit] I fixed some stuff.


	7. Allies - Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki makes breakfast (sort of), Bruce is both confused and surprised, Stephen Strange gets caught up in a Norse Goddess' problems, and the Avengers go through performance issues.

When Loki wakes the next morning, her head aches in a hollow sort of way and her chest hurts. Turning her head, she studies her daughter's sleeping face with a small frown before making the effort to get up. It's harder than it should be, as weak as she is, and she lets out a sharp breath in frustration. While Amora's magic had done enough to keep her alive, the effects of her exhaustion still run far deeper that she likes to admit, even to herself. It's for this exact reason that all mages learn early on to respect their boundaries concerning magic, lest they end up as useless as a newborn lamb in the midst of a battle. While Asgard had never had many mages to begin with, especially battle mages, Loki had met plenty of them while visiting the elves to respect their words.

Pressing her hands into the bed, she straightens up and makes the walk out into the hall and into the the living room beyond. She finds Amora sitting on the couch with Bruce's head in her lap, hands glowing green at his temples.

"Do not break him." Loki tells her and Amora startles, magic flickering as her concentration is broken. Bruce's eyelids flutter momentarily before he relaxes again and Amora frowns.

"I did not plan to; I merely wish to get at a look at the beast that he has locked within him." She replies, brows furrowing in thought. "They do not like each other."

"I would imagine so," Loki hums, folding into the chair across from the Enchantress. "Banner views his other half as a monster and regularly tries to destroy him."

"Sounds familiar," Amora mutters and Loki shoots her a warning look. "What? All of the Nine Realms know of Asgard's adopted Jotun prince who tried to destroy his own race. Odin was not kind in his retelling when the other Realms asked. Of course, he left out his involvement in any of it, but can you really say that I am not at all true?"

"You are not." Loki sniffs, ignoring the sad look that Amora gives her as she stands again. Wandering into the kitchen she opens the fridge and just stands there for a moment, feeling the cold air against her face. "You are not." She repeats in a whisper as she looks blankly at the shelves before her. As usual, Amora had decided to exercise her knowledge of Loki better than she should and the Trickster can't say that she appreciates it. It's one of the reasons Amora is her only friend; she doesn't need people to feel the necessity to point out her many flaws. She knows them well herself, after all, and looking at them is like picking at a scab before the skin beneath it heals. It does her no good and only results in blood and pain.

Blinking furiously, she grabs the large green melon from the top shelf and sits it on the counter. A quick search for a knife ends with her finding a drawer full of newspaper articles concerning her invasion of New York and Loki lets out a mirthless laugh. Closing the drawer again, she opens the one next to it and finds what she's looking for. She cuts the melon up into bite sized pieces, throwing the rinds in the trash under the sink, and dumps it all into a large glass bowl that she sits on the table. Then she goes back to the fridge and pulls a garish yellow and red box from the ice-box above. There are equally yellow discs of frozen bread inside and she studies them for a moment before placing them on a thin metal sheet with butter and placing it in the oven. Reading the box, she turns the little dial on its top and goes back into the living room with the bowl of watermelon pieces in her hands.

"I need the files that you got from SHIELD." She tells Amora as she sits it on the table, and the blonde sorceress disentangles herself from the sleeping scientist with a pout. Said scientist groans and opens his eyes, blinking up at them with a frown.

"Could you not knock me out again?" He asks Amora, voice laced with annoyance and she grins at him.

"As long as you keep your beast locked away and do not bring damage to my home or my friends." She replies and he sighs, probably figuring that that's the best he's going to get. Knowing Amora, it very much is.

"Why am I here? Wait, aren't you supposed to be dead?" He directs his latter question to Loki, who gives a self-deprecating smile.

"My mother and daughter resurrected me to keep Thor out of trouble." She says, grabbing a piece of watermelon and biting into it. "As for why you're here, that is a long story that I do not feel like divulging again so soon. Just know that I do not mean you or your world any harm."

"Forgive me if I'm not really up to taking your word on that." Bruce tells her, rubbing the back of his neck to work the kinks out. "You left me on the couch?"

"The beds were taken." Amora replies as she retrieves her USB from the pocket of space that she had put it in and hands it to Loki. The other goddess takes it with a muttered thanks and grabs the laptop that's sitting on the small glass table in front of the couch. She turns it on and plugs in the device before sitting down beside the doctor, who shifts away uncomfortably. Loki ignores him and begins searching through the files for what she needs. Then she comes across something that makes her pause, looking over at Bruce with wide eyes.

"You helped build an armour that could take down the Hulk?" She asks incredulously and he nods.

"It was necessary." He tells her, but she narrows her eyes at him.

"It was reckless, you mean. What would you do if such a machine fell into the wrong hands?" Loki snaps and Bruce's eyes widen in surprise. "Do you think your fellow Avengers would be able to stop it? That you would?"

"Tony has failsafes for it, hundreds of them." Bruce shoots back, even though his voice is lacking the conviction that Loki's has. "And it's stationed in space for a reason. We didn't want anyone to be able to tamper with it."

Loki laughs, short and insulting. "That does not make any difference. What would Stark's technology have against magic? Against beings that have existed since the beginning of time? What would you do then, faced with your own creation?"

"I've already had to take down something that I've made before." Bruce retorts angrily and then takes a deep breath to calm himself. "Tony and I made a sentient robot that tried to wipe out the planet. I know what it's like to fight against something I made, okay?."

"Then you must see the sense in what I'm saying." Loki concludes and Bruce nods. "Call Stark and tell him to take that armor out of orbit. If he doesn't destroy it, tell him to bury it where it will never be found."

"I can't really do that..." Bruce tells her and she gives him a questioning look. "Look, there's a reason I went into hiding before you oh so helpfully dragged me back into this shit. I can't talk to Tony, because if I do, he's going to try and find me and the others will come with him. I can't handle that right now."

"You will have to handle it eventually." Loki says, looking back down at the laptop. "But for now, I will let the matter lie."

To say Bruce is stunned would be a gross understatement. He stares at her for a long moment, expecting something. A threat, an ultimatum, an attempt at a deal, something other than the complacence that Loki's given him so far. If the goddess notices his confusion, she says nothing of it, scrolling through the pages of data on her screen until she comes across something that makes her smile.

Then Bruce smells something burning and jumps up with a few select swear words. Loki looks up, eyebrows wrinkling in confusion before her face light up in recognition. "I believe I burned our breakfast." She comments and Bruce lets out a long sigh before making his way to the kitchen. Strangely enough, he's actually smiling as he goes.

Loki looks over at Amora, who had been picking at her nails silently throughout the entire conversation. "I believe I found our sorceror." She tells her and the Enchantress leans forward with interest. Loki hands her the laptop so that she can read the file there and once she does, Amora lets out a sharp laugh.

"Oh this should be fun." She practically purrs, eyes alight with mischief and Loki gives her a positively wicked smile in return.

...

"Sara!" Strange's yell echoes through his mansion with uncanny volume and his secretary, Sara Wolfe, lets out a sigh in reply. It's not anything new for the doctor to raise his voice instead of just walking toward the person he's talking to like a sensible human being, but Sara can honestly say she's getting a little fed up by now.

"What?" She calls back, just as Stephen appears in the doorway to frown at her disapprovingly.

"Didn't anyone ever teach you that raising your voice inside is rude?" He chides and she scowls at him. "Never mind. Have you seen my papers to the University?"

"You threw them away when you noticed that they spelled your name wrong." Comes her long suffering reply and Strange lets out a hum before turning to her with a smile.

"Could you get them for me?" He asks, voice pleading and she looks at him incredulously.

"From the trash can?" She clarifies, not sure if she's heard him right.

He looks pointedly at her desk. "Did you make any other copies?"

"Of course I didn't! You were just supposed to look them over for errors and send them back."

"Then yes," He tells her. "I really need them."

"But they're in the trash!" She protests and he just raises an eyebrow at her. "You don't pay me enough for this."

"I pay you fine." He denies, voice offended. Then his eyes widen and he turns on his heel and walks back out of the room.

Sara stares after him for a long moment, before bending down beginning to root through the dust bin beneath her desk. Luckily, it's mostly paper. "I deserve a raise." She grumbles at Wong, who passes by the open door and gives her a strange look. "You tell him that, since he listens to you half the time. I want a two dollar raise or I'm leaving his hopeless ass to deal with his own crappy papers."

He nods and she goes back to looting through the garbage with a huff. Upstairs, Stephen is cursing in a variety of languages as a powerful burst of magic pulls at his core. He knows a summoning spell when he feels one, but this one is stronger than anything he's encountered in a long time. Channeling some of his magic to the Eye of Agamotto around his neck, he begins to search for the being that's trying to pull him through a pocket of spacetime, but all he gets is a flash of green eyes and golden hair along with the impression that his attacker is female.

"I don't think you know who you're dealing with sweetheart." He sends his message back through the link and receives the echo of a laugh in return as the pull becomes stronger. Tugging at the tendrils of magic around him, he channels it into the link and it breaks like so much spider silk. Letting out a sigh, he turns and runs right into a blonde bombshell dressed in all green.

"Sorry sweety, but I really need your help." She says and grabs both his arms with surprising strength before vanishing them both into thin air.

They reappear in a semi-spacious living room and Strange stumbles back, going on the defensive before he notices the group of people gathered around him. There's a girl that looks to barely qualify as an adult, a frazzled looking man in too large clothing, another man that he suspects is a giant, and a pale woman with long black hair. It's the black-haired woman that speaks, voice bored and obviously tired.

"We mean you no harm." She tells him and he raises an eyebrow at her in disbelief.

"Then why am I here?" He snaps back and she sighs, rolling her eyes so hard that it looks painful.

"I've heard that question way too many times as of late," She grumbles and the girl beside her chuckles. "If you really must know, I need your help in restoring my magic after a particularly nasty incident involving a king from another Realm."

"And you think that I can help you with that?" He asks, receiving a highly disappointed look in return.

"As Earth's Sorcerer Supreme and one of the most powerful magic users in this Realm, yes, I believe you can."

Strange stares at her for a moment, then sighs. "Let me rephrase that for you; why would I want to help you?"

"Because I'm planning on taking out a super-powered being that's older than your entire planet and in order to do so I need my magic at full capacity. But since I know that won't be enough for you, I'll also promise to destroy the records that SHIELD has on you."

Now that gets the doctors attention. "SHIELD has a file on me?" He asks, stunned, then he lets out a string of rather creative curses. "Those two-timing bastards, I told them to get rid of those."

The woman grins, eyes lighting up under a frame of dark lashes. "Do we have a deal?"

"Is the entity you're planning on destroying actually a threat to anyone or are you just trying to get bragging rights?" Strange inquires in return and her grin practically turns feral.

"Let's just say that he once destroyed half the known universe in the hopes of gaining the attention of a love interest." She says and Stephen blinks at her.

"Okay then, you have a deal, but I need everyone else, including the little girl over there," He gives the teenager a pointed look. "Out of the room."

"That 'little girl' is the Queen of an entire Realm." She snaps back, but Strange just smiles.

"Forgive me, your Royal Highness, but get out." He tells her and she glares at him before rising and grabbing the giant as she goes. "Charming."

"I wouldn't suggest getting on her bad side." The blonde one from before says as she grabs the man in the baggy clothes. "She can trap you in an alternate version of Hel if she felt like it."

"Been there, done that." Strange shoots back and Blondie huffs, dragging her companion from the room. Stephen turns to the obvious leader of the group and very nearly jumps when he finds her standing much too close for comfort. "Not that you aren't pretty or anything, sweetheart, but would you mind backing up a little?"

She ignores him and reaches out to snag the Eye that's hanging from his chest. "What is this?"

"A gift from a union of principalities with a serious split personality disorder." He tells her, taking a step back. "Now quit fondling my talisman before I change my mind about helping you get your powers back."

"How lascivious." She hums and Strange looks down at her for a long moment before bursting into laughter.

"You have no idea." He agrees and the corners of the woman's eyes wrinkle in amusement. "Now go lie down, you might pass out and I don't want to have to catch you."

"The last time a man asked me to lie down he was much more convincing about it." She replies with a wicked smile and Strange returns it full force.

"I'll make it worth your while then." He assures her and pulls a palm sized gem from his own personal pocket dimension. It glows an almost ultraviolet color, like a black light in a dark room, humming with enough pent up energy to wipe out a few city blocks. Placing it on her chest, he presses a hand over it and begins the rather convoluted chant of words that its gift-er had told him. After a few minutes it begins to heat up below his hand and the woman gasps, eyes widening as they shift to a deep purple before reverting back to green. The stone's hum quiets down to a murmur over a period of nearly fifteen minutes before going quiet and Stephen lifts his hand to look at it just before it dies out completely. He stares at it, then turns his attention to the woman, who looks to be caught between pleasure and an intense urge to laugh.

"How much magic did you have before?" He asks and she grins at him, eyes shining an eerie shade of green.

"Enough." She replies, sending sparks of magic through the air with near giddy excitement. "I am a god, after all."

"Oh great." Stephen groans and she reaches out to cup his chin with surprising gentleness.

"Do not think that I will renege on my end of our deal." She tells him with humbling seriousness. "You have helped me a great deal, Stephen Strange and I plan to reward you handsomely for it."

"How about you wipe my record with SHIELD as promised and tell me what it is you have planned. My life's been getting kind of boring lately and I would love to add Ally Of The Gods to my official resume."

"In that case, I suppose I should formally introduce myself." She holds out a hand. "My name is Loki, God of Mischief, Fire, and Chaos, Mother of Monsters. It's a pleasure to make you acquaintance, Stephen Strange."

He takes the offered hand and places a kiss on it, smiling all the while. "I can assure you, the pleasure is all mine."

...

Tony lets out a particularly vulgar curse as he's thrown across the room with enough force to cause his HUD to flicker upon contact with the wall. "Was that really necessary?" He complains as he pushes himself up, dodging another crimson blast of energy. "Hey!"

"Stop whining and fight!" Wanda shouts back at him, collecting a sphere of magic between her hands that she hurls straight at his face.

"Stop trying to kill me!" He snaps back as he uses his thrusters to propel himself out of the path of the deadly ball of chaos.

"If I was trying to kill you," The mage hisses. "You'd be dead."

"Well, it doesn't look like it's from lack of trying." He grumbles, flying past her so that her next blast of magic goes hurtling past him. It misses him by a good couple of feet and instead finds Sam, who's flying circles around Rhodey while releasing an array a subsonic shockwaves. The blaze of magic hits him dead in the chest, knocking him into Vision, who misses Thor's hammer in response. It goes hurtling toward Natasha with deadly speed before Cap manages to throw his shield into it's path and the resulting impact sends everyone onto their asses, a piercing clang reverberating throughout the room like the clap of a gong.

"Okay," Steve shouts as he stands back up and retrieves his shield. "I think we need a break."

"No kidding." Sam groans, rolling up onto his knees. "What was that?"

"That was terrible teamwork." Natasha tells him, hands on her hands as she glares over at Tony and Wanda. The inventor pulls off his helmet and gives her an apologetic smile but Wanda just huffs.

"None of it would've happened if Stark knew how to actually fight." She snaps and Tony turns to her with a disbelieving look.

"That wasn't fighting, that was you trying to take my head off!" He shoots back and she straightens her shoulders.

"I'm sorry, did you want me to go easy on you?" She asks sweetly and Tony opens his mouth to reply but Thor cuts him off.

"Enough!" He orders, voice rolling through the room like thunder. "This is not how honorable warriors act."

"It's a good thing that Stark isn't anywhere near honorable then." Wanda mutters and Tony lets out a growl of annoyance.

"What the hell is your problem?" He practically shouts and she glares at him, magic crackling around her fingers like errant electricity.

"My problem is the fact that they expect me to work with a war mongerer." She spits and everyone in the room goes still.

"Hey!" Rhodey protests, glaring at her through his raised faceplate. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I don't, don't I?" Wanda asks, voice deadly. "My whole life was torn apart because of him, because of a greedy American that enjoyed making weapons too much to think about the people that died every day because of them."

"That's not-" Tony begins, then stops because she's not exactly lying. Still, "I'm not that person anymore." He tells her and she scoffs.

"That's easy for you to say now, after all the ruin you've caused." She says and Tony lets out a frustrated sigh.

"Look, I've changed. I've rebuilt my entire life around keeping the peace that I used to think could be bought through war. I don't make weapons anymore-"

"No, you've just made yourself into one and threw away the key. The empire you made still stands, it's just under a different name." She tells him and leaves the training room, evading the hand that Steve puts out to stop her.

"I think..." The super soldier sighs. "I think that we should cancel training for the rest of the day, at least until I can figure out a way to get us through a session without it ending in disaster." He looks over at Tony, who's clenching his fists and staring resolutely at the ground. "Tony..."

"I'm going out for a quick flight check." The engineer tells him and stalks out of the room.

"That was not good." Vision comments, picking up Thor's hammer and handing it to him. The god nods his thanks and fastens it to his belt.

"Sam, Rhodey, can you follow Stark and make sure he doesn't do anything too reckless?" Steve asks and they nod, filing out of the room as the captain turns to Natasha. "Will you come with me to talk to Wanda?"

"Sure." She agrees and pats Thor on the shoulder as she passes him. "You and Vision should go and do something, bond a little more."

"Of course." Thor replies and practically drags the other hero from the room.

Natasha turns to Steve with a raised brow and he sighs. "I thought it would be easier with him here, but..." He trails off with a shake of his head.

"They have issues to work through, just like we all did in the beginning." She tells him with a reassuring smile. "I remember when you and Tony used to be the same way."

Steve winces and rubs his neck. "We couldn't have been that bad."

"No," She hums. "I'd almost say worse. I'm pretty sure Tony had tears in his eyes when you came at him on the helicarrier."

"I wasn't that bad." He objects and she gives him a look. "Okay, so we fought, but we got over it and worked together when we needed to."

"And they will too." She reassures him. "They just need time. Wanda's hurting right now and she's lashing out."

"That's not a good enough reason for her to say the things that she did." He tells her and she shakes her head.

"No, but it doesn't need to be for her. She wants people to feel her pain and Tony's the only person in her mind that deserves her wrath. It's a natural response to grief and she'll outgrow it in time, but for now we just have to keep them from ripping each other's throats out."

Steve gets what she's saying, he really does, but it doesn't make him feel any better. Tony's his friend and he doesn't like to see him hurt, despite the negative opinion he may have had toward the inventor when they first met. He just hopes that Wanda will eventually come to realize that the billionaire really isn't as horrible as she thinks he was. Natasha gives him a smile, like she can read his thoughts, and he wraps an arm around her in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry! I don't want to make Wanda seem like a bitch, because she's not, but I also know that she wouldn't be happy working with Tony at all. They won't fight forever, but for now she doesn't trust him and she certainly doesn't like him. That doesn't mean she's a bad person, it just means that she has some issues to work through concerning Tony.
> 
> As for Bruce, I don't see him as the kind of person that would attack someone (even Loki) without them throwing the first punch. He's too afraid of the damage that the Hulk could do, especially in a city, to really let him out just because he doesn't trust someone. That being said, just because he's not releasing the Hulk out on Loki, it doesn't mean he doesn't consider her dangerous and he'll still be wary of everything she says and does. 
> 
> Did you like Strange?
> 
> Also, I probably won't update for the next couple of days since I'm going to visit family. I'll post a new chapter as soon as I get back though.


	8. Siblings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper is the best ever, Strange gets on Hela’s good side, Amora finds herself reduced to tears for the first time in nearly a hundred years, and the rest of Team Loki start recruiting.

"Sir, you have an incoming call from Ms. Pepper Potts." Friday tells him as he's flying over a ridiculously green patch of land a few miles out from the Mansion. He almost tells her to decline the call, but then thinks better of it. He misses Pepper, misses her voice and her ability to reason with him when he's at his worst. He's getting there now, thoughts whirling in a storm of anger and guilt and self-hate, despite how many times he tries to tell himself that it's not his fault.

"Put her on." He sighs, slowing down as the country side outside of New York starts to dwindle away. At the speed he's going, he should be in the city within the hour, having left Rhodey and Sam behind in a metaphorical trail of dust.

"Tony, where are you?" Is the first thing Pepper asks after the call connects, voice laced with worry.

"Somewhere around Manchester, why?"

"Steve called me and said that you might need someone to talk to." She tells him. "Training isn't going well?"

"You could say that," He grumbles. "I don't know why I ever thought this was a good idea."

She frowns at him from the little video display on his HUD. "Because you're a good man and you wanted to help your friends."

"Am I, Pepper? I spent half my life designing things to kill people without a care, after all."

"And the other half you spent trying to right your wrongs. Everyone makes mistakes, Tony, but I've never met someone that did so much to fix them. Most people would learn from them but never touch them again. You didn't do that."

"But I didn't exactly stop making weapons, did I? I just stopped selling them."

She blinks at him disbelievingly for a long moment before leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest. "Where is all this coming from, why now?"

"From a woman that I ruined the life of." He tells her and her eyes widen. "The missiles I made were used to turn her town into a war zone and she lost her parents because of it. Then I made a homicidal robot that killed her brother. Everything I do comes back and hurts people, Pepper, and I'm tired of it."

"You made Iron Man," She protests. "You're a hero that millions of people adore."

"And how many people hate me? How many people have copied Iron Man and used it to try to bring harm to the people I love? Just because people think I'm a hero, doesn't mean that I am one. I'm just a genius with a flying metal suit."

"A flying metal suit that's saved more people since you made it than I can count. People are always going to dig up your past to hurt you, Tony, that doesn't mean you let them. I'm proud of you, Rhodey's proud of you, Nick is proud of you, even if he doesn't like to show it. And don't even get me started on your team." She tells him with a good-natured eye roll. "You're not the man that people think you are. You're so much more than that and I wish you could see it, because god knows everyone that knows you beyond a magazine article does."

"Pepper?" He asks and she focuses all of her attention on him. "Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me." She reminds him and he knows that he doesn't. He just likes to. He doesn't deserve her and he knows that, even if she doesn't. "I love you, you ridiculous man."

He grins at that, bright and happy. "I love you too, Pep."

"Good, now since you're nearly here, I have some papers that need looking over."

"Aw, c'mon Pepper, that's just-" He stops himself. "You're in New York again?"

"Have been for the last two hours, which you would have known if you ever bothered to call me and check in." She tells him, eyes bright with mirth and he wonders why he could never make their relationship work beyond those first few months.

"What can I say, I'm a busy guy." He returns and she laughs.

"Of course you are. Now get your shiny metal ass to the Tower so I can get a proper welcome back hug." She orders before hanging up. Switching most of his power to his boots with a laugh, Tony does just that.

…

Hela glares at Strange from her seat on the chair across from him, arms crossed over her chest in annoyance. The doctor is ignoring her, all his focus going to her mother, who's meditating in an attempt to become more in tuned to Midgard's Power signature. Every once in a while the Sorcerer will say something to make Loki laugh, grin cocky in a way that makes Hela itch. She hates it.

Amora doesn't seem to be fairing much better from her seat in the other arm chair. She looks bored but every now and then she shoots Strange narrow-eyed looks when she thinks no one is looking. Catching her eye on one such occasion, Hela frowns at her and Amora nods in agreement.

"If you're quite done making faces at each other," Loki interrupts their silent conversation. "Hela, I believe it's time for you to follow through on our deal."

"Not while he's here." She tells her mother and Loki sighs.

"Hela, you promised." She reminds her and Hela feels anger crawl beneath her skin like fire ants.

"I'm not leaving you while he's here." She sends Strange an ugly look but all he does is blink at her innocently.

"I believe you said something similar the first time we had this conversation." Loki replies, unfolding herself from the couch so that she can crouch before her daughter's chair. "No harm will come to me, I promise you that."

She tugs at her arms, loosening them from their defensive position and Hela lets her with a resigned sigh. "You cannot promise that, not honestly."

"Then I promise to try." Loki reneges and brushes the queen's hair from her face. "If I have need of you, I will not hesitate to call for you, but for now I would like to know that you are safe in Helheim."

"I'm not a child anymore!" Hela protests, her frustration and hurt shining through her voice. "I can help."

Loki opens her mouth to speak, but Strange cuts her off. "I say let her help."

Everyone turns to gape at him, including Bruce, who looks up from the SHIELD files after nearly an hour of intense reading. "You do not know what you are suggesting." Loki tells him with a cold look and he gives her an insultingly patient one in return.

"Sure I do." He shrugs. "She wants to stay and help and I say let her. If she's in any way related to a sorceress that sucked the magical equivalent of an atomic blast from a Power Stone," He points at Loki for emphasis with a wink. "Then she's gotta be powerful in her own right."

"She is in the room." Hela points out but she smiles her thanks anyway. Loki looks between the both of them with a slightly betrayed look before sighing and standing up.

"Fine, but as soon as I suspect that you might be in danger, I'm taking you back to Helheim myself." She warns the younger goddess and Hela nods her acquiescence.

"Well, since she's staying," Amora yawns and stands up. "I say that we should start on the next part of your plan."

"You know what the plan is?" Bruce asks and Amora gives him a gloating sort of smile.

"Of course," She sniffs haughtily. "She's my best friend. I couldn't very well let her run around without knowing if she would need my help."

Bruce only looks disturbed by that bit of information but he hides it after a moment and nods. "So what is the plan?"

"To recruit as many of Midgard's heroes as we can and go to war against a Titan." Loki tells him, then frowns. "Well, that's the two major points. The others are more flexible."

The scientist gives her a long-suffering look. "Such as?"

"If I told you everything, it wouldn't really be as fun, now would it?" She grins and Bruce rub at his eyes in frustration.

"You're really hard to like, you know that?" He replies and she laughs, causing him to give a small smile in return. Hela can tell that the man is surprised by her mother and remembers that they had been enemies the only time they had ever came into contact with one another. She wonders what it must be like for Banner to see the side of her mother that's normally reserved only for her children. It's refreshing in a way, to see her happy again after all this time and Hela thanks the Norns that she's here to witness it.

"Why don't you go with her?" The queen asks him and her turns to her with a startled expression.

"Go with her where?"

Hela rolls her eyes and goes to tug him out of the chair. "To gather allies. It has to be boring sitting in this apartment all day and it'll probably help if you were there as a show of good graces."

Loki hums, eyes considering before she nods. "That could work."

"No it couldn't." Bruce protests, the color practically draining from his face. "I can't be the Hulk anymore, not after all that's happened. I can't control him and I don't trust him to not hurt anyone."

"Then you would live your life in fear, running from the people that consider you a friend?" Loki asks him and the scientist's eyes widen in a mix of hurt and anger. "If you learn to control and trust your other side, then what have you to fear?"

"Being a monster." Bruce shoots back, eyes flickering green before he takes a calming breath. "Becoming something that my friends have to take down one day after I lose myself. I can't put them through that." He pauses, voice lowering to a near whisper. "I can't put myself through that."

Loki's eyes flood with understanding and she seems to soften as she takes a step toward the physicist. "I told you that you would have to face your fears eventually when I brought you here and I fully intend for you to do so, but… If you would aid me in gathering allies, I promise you that you will not have to fight alongside me if you do not want to."

He gives her a disbelieving look, mouth hanging open before Amora leans over and shuts it for him. "You… I… You can't promise me that." He finally says and she raises a brow at him.

"The choice to fight is yours," She assures him, voice firm. "Whether you want to or not is completely up to you, no matter how I might feel."

The scientist studies her for a long moment, then gives her a grateful smile. "Thank you."

"You are welcome." She replies and turns to Strange. "If you could come with us, I would be grateful."

"I already told you that I'm in this for the excitement." He grins. "You're not gonna leave me with Silence McGee over there without a fight."

Skurge scowls at him. "I would like to see you try, puny man." He snaps and Strange lets out a delighted laugh. Amora looks between the two of them with surprise before smiling, bright and happy. Turning to Hela, she holds out a hand.

"I believe it's time to get going." She says and Skurge takes her other hand before they vanish in a flash of light.

Stephen looks after them for a moment before turning to Bruce. "I'm buying you better clothes before I'll even think about meeting other superheroes with you by my side."

Bruce looks down at the loose pair of jeans and the t-shirt he's in with a grimace. "I wouldn't exactly mind if you did."

Loki gives both of them a considering look. "I will need to get new clothes as well." She says and Strange gives her a thorough up and down, noting the tight leather pants and green shirt she's wearing.

"You look fine to me." He tells her in a voice that suggests that she's much more than fine and Loki rolls her eyes.

"I do not plan to stay in this form forever." She says and Stephen looks dumbfounded before Bruce seems to take pity on him.

"She has a male form that's much taller and not as… curvy." He explains, a bit uncomfortably, and the sorcerer immediately assumes an interested expression.

"If it's anything like this one, then I'd definitely like to see it." He says with a wink and Loki chuckles while Bruce shifts, a dawning look of horror on his face.

"You're not…?" He trails off, clearly lost and Loki gives him a patronizing smile.

"I can assure you that I have no plans to bed Doctor Strange." She tells him and said doctor very nearly pouts.

"And I thought we had a connection." He sighs, lips twitching at the corners before dissolving into laughter when Loki rolls her eyes. After a few moments, he straightens, wiping the tears from his eyes with a few dying chuckles. "We'll need to stop by my place for a car, since we can't teleport all over the city without someone noticing."

Loki smiles up at him and wraps a hand around each of their right arms before vanishing them in a blaze of green-gold light. They land in the middle of Strange's foyer with a thud and Bruce looks a bit green around the edges in a way that has solely to do with the rolling of his stomach.

"You'll get used to it." The sorcerer tells him and Bruce shakes his head.

"I don't think I want to." He groans, but his color starts to come back as he looks around. "So, this is your place?"

"Yep," Strange says smugly, popping the p. "Home, sweet home and all that bull-shit. I do share with my assistant, Wong, and my secretary, Sara, though so don't scare them. Speaking of which," He cranes his head back to look up the gigantic staircase before them. "Sara!"

There's a loud bang before a woman appears at the top of the stairs moments later, brandishing a stack of papers with a look of tired annoyance, a trash bin in her other hand. "I found your stupid papers."

"Oh," Stephen looks genuinely surprised. "You can throw those out. I'll send an email to the University and tell them to stick their theories on the metaphysical plane of existence up their asses."

The woman's face goes red with fury as she stares down at him before she chucks the bin at his head with a muffled scream. "I'm leaving you, you smug bastard!" She yells and Strange dodges the bin with a laugh.

"I love you too dear." He tells her, before gesturing at the two newcomers beside him. "I'd like you to meet Dr. Bruce Banner, former Avenger of Earth, and Loki, Goddess of Really Long Titles."

Loki glares at him as Bruce waves up at the flustered secretary with a smile. Sara looks at them for a long moment, then turns on her heel and disappears back to where she came from, leaving a trail of curses and paper in her wake.

…

Amora can't say she enjoys being anywhere near Asgard after so much time. Just the thought of the golden Realm Eternal makes her magic thrum beneath her skin like an itch, warning her of potential danger. Luckily, she's not currently in the city and even if she were, she doubts that any of the Aesir would recognize her in her current form.

She makes a mental note to invite Jessica to dinner when she see her again, after using her likeness for a number of highly illegal deeds. While none of her actions are likely to come back to effect the mortal in any way, it makes her feel a rare pang of guilt. It's not a feeling she's familiar with, not by far, and that makes her even more uncomfortable.

Hela looks at her worriedly from where she's riding on a beautiful grey stallion, Sleipnir at her side. Her brother shoots the Enchantress a look as well, large equine eyes studying her for a long moment before he snorts. Amora smiles at him and urges her horse forward.

"Do not worry about me dear." She tells both of them, smiling to show them that she's perfectly fine. "I am merely lost in thought."

 _'That's not a normal occurrence for you, Amora.'_  Loki's son replies mentally and she smacks his shoulder.

"Hush," She chides, frowning at him now. "One would think that Loki didn't take the time to teach you to respect your elders."

"What did he say?" Hela asks and Amora waves her hand.

"Nothing that deserves to be repeated." She assures but Hela lets out a peal of laughter a moment later, Sleipnir looking smug from his spot by her side after undoubtedly telling her himself. "You are both utterly wicked children." She huffs and Loki's eldest son lets out a snort.

They continue on in much the same manner, bickering good-naturedly, until they come upon a large rock planted into the Asgardian country side. Chained to the rock is a monstrously large wolf with matted dark brown fur and fierce amber eyes. It turns its head toward them with a growl, the sword within its mouth glinting in the sun. Blood drips from its teeth to land in splatters on the ground and Amora draws her horse up short with a look of revulsion.

"Oh you poor, poor thing." She gasps, jumping from her saddle to rush to its side. The wolf growls again, hackles raised in warning as it moves to the limits of its chains in an effort to keep the distance between them. Amora frowns at him, clearly confused, although she does stop walking immediately. "I am not here to harm you, young one." She tells him and the growl turns into a thunderous rumble as the wolf snarls around the sharp blade in his mouth.

"Brother!" Hela calls, dismounting her own horse before she rushes to the wolf's side. The beast quiets, recognizing her despite the half-mad haze of pain in his eyes and the Queen nearly lets out a sob. "Brother, I'm here. I'm going to set you free." She promises him, tears shining in her eyes. Reaching out, she grabs the sword, wincing at the high-pitched whine she receives in return, and pulls it free with vicious strength.

A pained howl rends the air as the wolf's mouth is freed, blood pooling rapidly beneath him as he huffs in rapid breaths, tongue lolling over the injured flesh of his gums. Shifting back, his hackles raise once more, lips drawing back over his teeth in a fierce display of anger. Hela shushes him, throwing the sword away with an expression of disgust. Magic collects in her hands, glowing silver as she tentatively reaches out. "I will not hurt you, Fen." She whispers to him, using her old nickname for him as she slowly lays her hands over his snout, a litany of "I'm sorry" falling from her lips all the while.

Eventually he calms again, letting out a huff of relief as she heals the cuts along his mouth with loving gentleness. Sleipnir trots up beside them and studies the chains for a long moment before turning to Amora.  _'Get the sword.'_ He tells her and she blinks at him, mouth pressed into a thin line of fury and sadness.

"Why would I ever want to touch such a thing?" She asks, voice quavering in a way that makes Hela look back at her with wide eyes.

 _'Because it's the only thing that can cut through those chains, if the stories are true.'_  He replies and she nods, a nauseated look crossing her face as she crouches down to pick up the weapon. Fenrir immediately starts growling again, struggling against his binds despite how much Hela tries to reassure him.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I promise you that on my life." Amora tells him but he only struggles more, eyes wild in fear. Steeling herself, the Enchantress raises the sword above her head and brings it down upon the chains with stunning force. It cuts through them like butter, clanging against the rock below and Fenrir takes off in the opposite direction, legs strong enough to carry him a good hundred feet before they give out from under him. He tumbles to the ground with a pained howl, legs tangling with each other as he rolls to a stop. Sleipnir gallops after him, pressing his head into the wolf's chest despite the warning growl he receives.

 _'You are free, Fen.'_  He assures him and his brother looks up at him, eyes wide before going boneless in the grass beneath him. Hela drops to her knees beside him and pulls him to her with a sob, burying her head in the fur of his shoulder, despite the blood and dirt that's matted there. He licks her face in return before turning his head toward Amora.

Between one moment and the next, he shifts into his more Aesir form, shirtless and covered in a collection of filth. He wraps his arms around his sister with a sob of his own, taking in the smell of her skin after so long. She holds him tighter, shoulders shaking as his tears begin to dampen her hair. Joining them, Amora lays a hand om Sleipnir's flank and he shifts as well, golden light flickering over his skin until he stands beside her in the shape of a young man with unruly black hair and ragged clothing

"Is mother okay?" He asks her and she nods.

"Last I saw she was flirting with a powerful sorcerer on Midgard." She tells him and he laughs, not unlike the huff of an amused horse. Looking down at his siblings, his eyes go infinitely sad. "Thank you."

Amora shakes her head. "Do not thank me for something that should have been done long before now." She replies and he smiles nonetheless.

"Whether now or a hundred years from now, I will always be grateful to have my brother and sister back." He says softly before Hela pulls him down to join in on the hug. Amora watches them with tears trailing down her face and an overwhelming sadness in her gut. Despite what Loki's eldest son might say, she can't shake the feeling of guilt that washes over her at the thought of all the time that had passed while Loki's children stayed trapped at other's mercy while she did nothing. Even as Loki's self-proclaimed best friend it had never crossed her mind to free them and for that, she's not sure if she can forgive herself.

Then a strong hand wraps around her wrist and she looks down to meet Fenrir's eyes before he pulls her to her knees beside him. His and Hela's arms come up around her shoulders, bringing her into their embrace and her tears fall to the ground beneath them as she hugs back.

…

"Why is it that superheroes feel the need to build ridiculously huge towers in the middle of the city?" Stephen complains, looking up at said tower through the window of the diner across the street. He's sitting with a now male God of Mischief across from him and a properly dressed Bruce Banner at his side. He has to admit that they both look good, even if Bruce is a little too "coffee-addicted college professor" for his tastes. Loki, on the other hand, he muses, can pull off tight black pants in both his male and female forms, an attribute that Strange appreciates and envies simultaneously.

Loki looks up at the thirty-something-plus story Baxter Building from his seat across from him with a hum. "I can honestly say that Stark has much better taste." He comments and Strange nearly gives himself whiplash when he turns to gape at him.

"Are you kidding?" He chokes out. "That tower is ugly as sin! I almost sent him an official complaint when they built it. It was spelled of course; the thing wouldn't have stopped screaming if he set it on fire." He adds and Bruce lets out an honest to god laugh, face going red as he tries to gasp in enough air to properly breath.

"Tony would have had a fit." He finally manages and Loki's lips twitch with helpless mirth as a waitress appears beside their table. A quick glamour keeps any of the diner's patrons from recognizing him and so he takes a moment to study the people around them as Strange and Bruce place their orders. While before, all of the mortals would have looked alike to him, like bugs far beneath his notice, now that he's on their level, so to speak, he starts to see their uniqueness. Like the child grinning at him from across the room, face smeared with syrup from his breakfast, who catches his gaze before waving. He gives a small wave back and the boy beams before his mother scolds him for standing on the seat.

"Weird, huh?" Bruce comments and the god turns to him with a frown. "I mean, it's got to be a new thing for you, being this close to mortals."

"I used to frequent Midgard with my brother quite often while your ancestors were still inclined to worship us." He replies and Bruce looks suitably taken aback. "But yes, it is much different now."

"Do you regret it?" He asks and the god knows that he's referring to the invasion.

"Yes and no," He sighs. "It was necessary for my survival, but I do regret the fact that I brought undue ruin upon your realm, despite my reasons to."

Bruce looks away uncomfortable for a second, then he clears his throat. "That's good to know… I think."

Loki laughs. "You do not have to hide your disapproval of my actions, Doctor Banner. I am well aware that I gave you and your fellow Avengers every reason to hate me. I acted in the interest of myself and didn't bother to think about the lives I would have to sacrifice, half-mad as I was. Lesser men, and women," He adds, thinking of the fire-haired assassin. "Lesser beings would have killed me for my actions and you did not. For that I am grateful, because it has given me the opportunity to right my wrongs."

"Then I'm glad we didn't." He tells him and the god smiles his thanks, enjoying the companionable silence that falls upon them until their food arrives. When Loki sees what was ordered for him, he turns to glare at Stephen, who raises his hands in an innocent gesture.

"Wasn't me, sweetheart." He protests and Bruce ducks his head down, smiling as Loki pokes at the large yellow discs of bread on his plate.

"I figured you'd want to try them since you burnt the last batch." He says. "They're called waffles, by the way."

Loki looks down at the waffles in mild disgust and Strange grabs a bottle of brown liquid and pours it all over them. "Try them; they're a lot better than pancakes." He urges and Loki gives him a suspicious look before using the side of his fork to cut off a piece and takes a bite. His eyes light up and he lets out a low moan of surprise and pleasure, causing Bruce to blush to the roots of his hair.

Strange just winks at him and digs into his own food. The others do the same, although Loki does make the effort to moan at least once more to see their reactions. Bruce drops his fork, nearly choking on his eggs and Stephen lets out a loud laugh. Loki chuckles in return and goes back to eating, a warm feeling settling in his stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm not gonna lie, I teared up while writing the Fenrir scene. I hadn't planned on adding him and Sleipnir into the story for a while yet, but after going over my outline I figured, why wait?
> 
> Also, team bonding!


	9. Allies - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amora and the others return to Midgard, SHEILD really isn't helping, The Fantastic Four aren't so fantastic, and our three favorite assholes finally end up in a room together.

The first thing Amora does when they return to Midgard is get Sleipnir and Fenrir a change of clothes. Leaving the siblings in her empty apartment after placing several strong wards on all the entrances, she makes the trip to a nearby clothing store and picks up several outfits. While Fenrir is much broader than his brother, Sleipnir makes up for it by being a good few inches taller, which made shopping somewhat difficult. Eventually she does manage to find three outfits for both the boys, along with two for Hela, that she deems good enough.

It doesn't take her long to notice the team of SHIELD agents that fan out around the store, hoping to capture her on the orders of the director, no doubt. She ignores them beyond the small smile that curves her lips, gathers her clothes and makes her way to the register. The agents converge, not quite close enough to look suspicious but enough to block off her escape if they wanted. Not that it would work, she knows, and can't help but feel disappointed in SHIELD's queen.

Taking her bags from the cashier, she makes her way out of the store and into the alley beside it before vanishing into thin air. She reappears inside her apartment and pauses to look outside her window to see at least three black vans across the street. "Sleipnir," She calls and he pokes his head out of the kitchen. "Take these and change. There are spare outfits in there for your brother and sister as well. Now hurry, we need to go."

"Go where?" He asks, accepting the clothes when she hands them over. "What's going on?"

"I caught the interest of a spy organization and they're finally catching up to me, the poor things. While my apartment is heavily guarded against unwanted visitors, I'd rather have you all safe. As for where we are going, that I do not know just yet, but I will by the time you're ready."

The man nods and disappears down the hall, before knocking on the door to the guest room. Amora grabs the laptop from the table and boots it up, searching for Strange's file and the phone number in it. Snatching up the landline, she dials the number and presses it to her ear.

"Strange speaking," The doctor answers on the third ring and Amora lets out a sigh of relief.

"It's Amora," She tells him, looking over as Hela comes into the living room, dressed in her new clothes with a blue crown of flowers in her hair. "I need a place to stay where SHIELD won't think to look for me."

"Your apartment isn't safe enough?" He asks, sounding proud. "And here I thought you were an all-powerful sorceress."

"No one is all powerful, you fool." She snaps back. She does not have the time to spare while Strange strokes his ego. Then again, he doesn't know the danger they're in. Normally she'd stay here, surrounded by her own protection, but she's not willing to risk that with Loki'a children in the apartment as well. "Just give me an address, Strange. I have children here."

"Children?" Comes his confused reply before the sound of the phone being jostled comes echoing back at her.

"You did not bring my children into this, Enchantress." Loki growls, male voice and all, and Amora feels a chill go down her spine.

"They needed to be free, and they can help." She replies and Loki lets out a frustrated noise.

"And what if Odin finds them gone? He will hunt them down and kill them, Amora. I cannot let that happen." Loki tells her, voice harsh with anger and something that Amora knows is fear. No, not fear, Loki is terrified, but the Enchantress can't let herself think about that. Not now of all times.

"Then it won't. They will be safe with me." She promises, hoping that Loki will trust her. She knows that if anything happens to his children, it won't be just Asgard that feels the god's wrath. "Just give me somewhere to go so that I can assure that."

Loki is silent for a long moment, then he lets out a long sigh and gives her the address to Strange's home. "There are two people that live there, so have care not to startle them." He tells her. "And Amora, take the laptop and anything of arcane origin with you. We do not need SHIELD conducting tests on any magical items they may find in order to come up with a better way to track us."

Relaying Loki's word to the other's, she hangs up and frowns as she catches sight of Fenrir. He's dressed in jeans and a thin hooded shirt, but the thing that holds her attention is the sword from Asgard that's strapped across his back via the remnants of his old pants. He catches her eye and raises an eyebrow before joining his siblings in searching her home for any magical artifacts. Letting the matter lie, Amora goes to her room and removes one of her pillowcases as Hela fishes under her bed for her coffer of gems. There's another box with a collection of daggers in it in the top of her closet and she shoves it into the bag with the coffer before going to the living room. There's a pile of various items on the table, all humming with power and she scoops them into the case as well before vanishing it to a pocket dimension.

"Your clothes?" She asks Sleipnir and he holds up a large grey bag with the clothing store's insignia on it. "Good, then it's best we leave now."

"Where are we going?" Hela asks as she takes Fenrir's hand. Amora grabs the other one and holds her free hand out to Sleipnir, who takes it quickly.

"To Strange's mansion." She replies, gathering her magic as a knock sounds at the front door. Hela frowns and opens her mouth to say something, but before she can, they vanish and reappear in a large foyer. Fenrir looks up the monstrous crystal chandelier above them, then over at the double grand staircase and lets out a snort.

"Who the hell are you?" A woman asks, clearly startled as she emerges from a doorway to their right. Amora gives her a blinding smile and releases her hold on Loki's children in order to hold a hand out to the woman.

"You must be Sara," She greets as the secretary takes her hand with a mix of weariness and resignation.

"Let me guess, Strange offered you a place to crash, just like he did the others?" She guesses, looking over the two men and woman behind the Enchantress.

"Others?"

"Yeah, a mousy little man with glasses and a god."

"My mother has been here?" Sleipnir asks, stunned and Sara shoots him a look.

"Only if your mother recently got a sex change to tall, dark, and incredibly pale." She replies and his eyebrows furrow in confusion. "Forget it, just follow me so I can show you your rooms and get back to looking for a new job."

...

"Well that was a waste of perfectly good time." Strange grumbles as they leave the Baxter Building and Bruce nods. "What gave you the idea that they could be useful in a war?"

Loki looks over at him with a sigh. "SHIELD had an exclusive file on all of them, so I thought it was worth the look. I was not expecting a bunch of teenagers with no idea as to how to work as a team." He admits and if Strange didn't know better, he'd say the god looks a little downtrodden. In all reality, he doesn't know what he was expecting when they went to talk to the Fantastic Four. Lowered expectations and all that. But still, finding out that their potential allies were a science experiment gone wrong with enough inexperience to make a virgin wince was a little... disappointing.

"Maybe we should keep an eye on them just in case." Bruce offers and the others turn to look at him with twin expressions of disbelief. "That's creepy. Anyway, think about it. They're figuring out their powers now, but eventually they're going to start working as a team."

"Or get themselves killed." Strange adds and Bruce shoots him an annoyed look.

"No, Banner has a point." Loki murmurs, looking back at the building as they get into Strange's car. "If anything should happen to them, it would be beneficial to know so that we can offer aid. Such an action would earn their trust and ingratiate them to us immensely."

"Then they would have to help us." Strange concludes, turning the car on with a considering look.

"They wouldn't have to do anything." Bruce reminds him as they pull into traffic and Loki hums.

"But they would be more inclined to." He agrees. "Until then we need to keep looking for potential allies."

Strange glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "So, where to now?"

"Drop me off at Stark Tower and take Bruce back to the mansion." Loki tells him and Strange's eyes widen.

"Hell no! I'm not leaving you to talk to an Avenger alone." The doctor replies and Loki notices Bruce slip lower in his seat in the back.

"I'll be perfectly fine, Stephen." Loki says, voice exasperated and Strange lets out a dark chuckle.

"If I remember the reports from a year ago correctly, the last time you came into contact with them you ended up going back to Neverland with a muzzle on your mouth." Strange retorts, then glances back at Bruce. "No offence, doctor."

"None taken." The physicist reassures, shooting a worried glance at the god that's currently clenching his fists in the passenger seat.

"Stark will not do anything to restrain me, he's not that stupid." Loki sighs before shifting into his female form, his old clothes now replaced by a black dress with a plunging neckline. "Besides, I won't be going as my normal self."

Stephen raises an eyebrow at her. "So you're going for the seduction technique? Because if you are, I might get a little envious."

Loki lets out a snort, a smile curling her now garnet red lips. "Whatever for?"

"That was your method for me." The sorcerer points out, a whining note entering his tone. "I would at least think that as a trickster god, you'd have more cards up your sleeve than that."

"Why change your game when you can stick with what works?" Loki practically purrs and the doctor's hands clench around the steering wheel before he loosens them with a wince.

"You could have just told me you wanted an open relationship." Strange quips back and Loki laughs, high and gleeful.

"Are you guys sure you aren't sleeping together?" Bruce asks from the backseat and immediately regrets it as both magic users turn to him with equally mischievous smiles. "Forget I asked."

Strange catches Loki's eye and gives her a blinding grin. "I'm all in if you are, sweetheart."

"Maybe another time." Loki hums with a wink as they pull up in front of Avengers Tower. "Are you coming?"

"Oh, I get a say now?" Strange grumbles to himself and Loki gives him a dirty look. "Fine, fine, I'm coming. Keep your panties on."

"Who said I was wearing any to start with?" Loki replies, voice husky, before getting out of the vehicle with a click of heels against pavement. Strange stares after her, face flushed, before he throws the keys into the back seat beside a startled Bruce and practically scrambles out of the car with an order to not get into any accidents. When he joins the goddess, she's hiding her laughter behind a hand, eyes bright with mirth.

"That was unfair and you know it." Strange complains and she only laughs harder, shoulders shaking minutely as she watches Bruce pull away from the curb.

"Do you think he'll make it back to the manor without an incident?" She asks once she's composed herself again and Strange gives his retreating car a considering look.

"Well he is a volatile man with a rage monster locked inside of him trying to navigate the traffic in downtown Manhattan." He muses, ignoring Loki's annoyed frown. "Yeah, he should be fine."

"You are fortunate that I like you, Stephen Strange." She sighs and the sorcerer assumes a hurt look.

"And here I thought you were trying to hide your undying love for me behind that haughty facade of yours, dollface." He mock gasps, laying a hand over his heart as he uses the other to hold the door open for her.

"Do not ever call me that again." She growls at him in return, striding past into the reception office.

"Dollface?" He wonders. "Would you prefer sweetcheeks instead?"

"Sweetheart was just fine." She sniffs and he grins. "But if you insist on continuing with your ridiculous pet names, you'll have to start calling me Loki again."

He opens his mouth to remind her that he never called her Loki to begin with, but at that moment the receptionist chooses to finally give them her attention. "How can I help you?"

"Oooh, a loaded question." Strange hums and a sharp heel digs into his toe. "Hey!"

Loki ignores him. "We have an appointment to meet with Tony Stark about a potential partnership." She tells the woman with an accent that holds just a hint of northern roots. Strange wonders about it for a moment before remembering that the goddess is Norse in origin.

"Your names?"

"Loptr Lyesmith," Loki tells her before Stephen can give any input. "And this is my associate, Vincent Stevens."

"I don't seem to have any appointments under those names." The woman tells them a moment later and Loki frowns.

"Surely we're there." She murmurs, eyes glowing a more vibrant green for a split second and Strange resists the urge to stare at her. "Could you look again?"

The woman does, letting out a surprised laugh when she undoubtedly stumbles upon the appointment in the computer system. "Sorry, I must have skipped it the first time." She apologizes and Loki gives her a reassuring smile. "If you could just wait a moment, I'll call one of the higher levels and see if I can get you sent up."

Loki gives her one last smile and nods, before ushering Strange toward an elevator. "We're not gonna wait?" He asks as she pushes the button for the fiftieth floor.

"She'll forget we ever came into the building in five minutes." Loki informs him, looking up at the camera in the corner. "Jarvis, inform your maker that I would like to speak with him."

"Who's-"

"Forgive me ma'am, but I am not allowed to comply to your request." An automated voice replies before Strange can finish his question and the Sorcerer Supreme lets out a frustrated sigh. He'd just like to get one word in. One! Maybe a whole sentence if the powers that be were feeling a little gracious.

Loki frowns, brows knitting together. "You are not Jarvis." She tells the voice as the elevator comes to a stop in between floors.

"No, I am not." The female voice informs them. "Jarvis is unavailable."

"Then please connect me to Tony Stark."

"Sir is currently unavailable as well."

"Then make him available." Loki snaps and a screen switches on within the lift's glass wall, Tony's face looking back at them.

"You know, it's not normal for people to ask for Jarvis when they visit my tower." He tells them and Strange narrows his eyes at him. "What do you want?"

"Do you speak to Thor this way too or am I getting the special treatment?" Loki shoots back and Stark's eyes widen before he lets out a curse.

"Loki?" He manages and Stephen rolls his eyes. "Shit, Thor could've warned me that you were..." He trails off, clearly unsure if he should continue.

"Female?" Loki inquires, a smile tugging at her lips and the sorcerer feels annoyance wash over him.

"Hot," Tony corrects, taking in the low neckline of the dress with an appreciative look. "I was going to say hot, or gorgeous really."

"Oh great, he has eyes." Strange sighs, voice laced with sarcasm, and Loki frowns at him. "What?"

"Are you getting jealous, my dear?" She murmurs to him and he snorts.

"Of course not. Why would I be jealous of him?"

"Why wouldn't you?" Stark shoots back with honest surprise. "I'm me."

"Is that supposed to mean something?" Strange drawls and Loki looks about ready to bash her head into the wall.

"Measure yourselves later." She snaps at the both of them and Tony snaps his mouth shut mid-reply. "Stark, I would appreciate it if you would let us up."

"Why would I do that?" He asks and Loki growls under her breath, eyes narrowing in annoyance. Stephen shifts as far out of her reach as possible in the tiny space they're in.

"Because otherwise, we'll just teleport into you penthouse and I'll be in a considerably less gracious mood." She tells him with a dangerous lilt to her voice and Strange doesn't know whether to shiver or grin at Tony's gobsmacked expression. He goes with grinning and when Loki looks at him she rolls her eyes.

"I think I like the other you better," Tony tells her with an honest to god pout. "You were much less moody." When Loki raises an eyebrow at him in response, he winces, seemingly realizing how sexist he just sounded. "Forget I said that."

"I already have." Loki says dismissively and Strange shoots the Avenger a proud little grin. He doesn't stick his tongue out though, because that would be childish.

The elevator starts back up again, rising past the numbered levels to the ones beyond them. Then it opens with a chime and Strange gets his first peek of Casa de la Stark. His first thought is that it's pretentious and his second thought is that he was right. Loki seems familiar with their surroundings though because she strides over to the bar that Tony's standing behind before sitting on one of the stools.

"I believe you owe me a drink, Stark." She tells the inventor in greeting and he slides a glass of amber liquid over with a smile. Loki pauses to inhale before taking a sip, a pleased noise escaping her. Strange catches Tony staring and shoots him a warning look that's summarily ignored. Joining them at the bar, the doctor crosses his arms on the marble top and looks the inventor over. He's shorter in person and his goatee looks even more ridiculous this close up.

"Did you come all this way to cash in on my offer for alcohol or did you want something?" Stark asks filling up two more glasses. He passes one to Strange without so much as a glance, focus glued to the goddess before him and the sorcerer can't help but bristle internally.

"You promised me that you would work with preparing the Avenger for the coming war." Loki reminds him, taking another drink from her glass. "I came to check up on your progress."

Tony raises an eyebrow at her, a quick smile flitting across his face. "If there's one thing you'll learn quickly when it comes to me, sweetheart, it's that I don't like to be checked up on."

Stephen scowls at him and begins to shoot something undoubtedly sarcastic back in response but Loki lays a hand on his arm. Tony eyes the gesture with a curious look and the doctor gives him a smug one in return. Loki sighs.

"Did you want to get your pissing contest out of the way now or can we go back to business?" She asks in an exasperated tone and both men glare at each other before turning back to her. "Good. I do not suffer fools, lightly or otherwise, so I would appreciate it if the both of you could behave."

"I haven't even said anything." The Sorcerer Supreme protests at the same time that Tony mumbles "He started it." under his breath and Loki drinks the rest of her brandy in one quick gulp. Strange wonders if she can actually get drunk off of Midgardian alcohol, being a god and all. Tony refills her glass without a word and Loki nods her thanks.

"How is your training going?" She tries again and Tony immediately looks shifty.

"Not exactly well." He tells her and her eyes narrow in response, causing Strange to bite down a snicker.

"What do you mean by exactly?"

"I mean just what I said. Things aren't going well, we fight, but not in a good way, and we can't get through a single training session without it ending in disaster."

"Oh great," Stephen sighs, because this is just what they need. "Dysfunctional superheroes."

Tony gives him an annoyed look before looking back down at his drink with a frown. "We have a magic user on the team that just lost someone extremely important to her and she blames me for it."

"And why would she do that?" Loki wonders and Stark seems to almost fold in on himself, his cocky demeanor nowhere in sight.

"I might have been the one that made the weapons that killed her parents and then accidentally got her brother killed via science gone wrong." He tells her and Loki looks thoughtful for a moment, her index finger tapping a rhythm on her glass.

"Was he her anchor?" Strange asks and her eyes light up with a mixture of pride and understanding as she smiles at him. Strange smiles back, ignoring the pointed glances that Stark is shooting at them. Finally giving the inventor his attention, he notices the the confused furrow of his brow and takes pity on him. "An anchor is a person or thing that keeps a magic user grounded. They essentially become the foundation for our more arcane natures and if we lose them then we lose a significant amount of control over the Power that we use."

"For instance," Loki adds. "If this woman's anchor was her brother, then losing him would have dealt a significant blow to her grounding as a magic user. That coupled with grief would explain why she's lashing out when she wouldn't have before."

"Then how do I fix it?" Stark asks, voice taking on a determined air.

"It's not up to you to fix it." Loki tells him. "She'll find a new anchor in time, but until then I suggest you work on showing her the reason your on the team. I can't afford for the Avengers to fall apart due to infighting."

"And what about you?" Stark shoots back, changing the subject. "How's your quest for the Gems going?"

"I know the location of two of them, three now that I've gotten my hands on SHIELD's files."

"SHIELD knows where one of the Gems are?" Tony asks her incredulously and Loki nods.

"It's currently in the forehead of one of your team mates."

"Son of a bitch." The inventor curses and the goddess looks taken aback.

"I don't understand." She murmurs to Strange and he pats her arm.

"I'll explain later." He promises and she frowns at him. "Anyway, we'll find the remaining Gems while you work on getting your team to cooperate."

"What about your team?" Tony directs his question at Loki instead of Strange and the sorcerer would really, really appreciate it if he would stop already.

"We're currently ahead of you in the whole allies department." The Sorcerer Supreme informs him. "Seven to eight."

"I suggest you dig into SHIELD's files on potential Avengers." Loki adds. "There's a helpful little list that we've been making our way through."

"And how am I supposed to explain that to the team?"

"You shouldn't need to. If you find a hero, offer them an invitation and go about your business." The goddess explains, finishing off her drink. "There's nothing adverse about building allies. Now if you'll excuse us, we have an old acquaintance to meet."

And with that not-so-suitable goodbye, she teleports them away to a side street beside the Tower. Strange spots his car and gives her a questioning look as she begins dragging him toward it.

"I felt the remnants of Amora's magic and figured that Banner was still nearby." She tells him and Strange shakes his head.

"Not what I meant, sweetheart, and you know it." He replies as he takes the keys from the scientist, who goes around to the back seat. "Who's the acquaintance?"

"A teammate of both Banner and Stark." She hums and Bruce lets out a groan from the backseat.

"He'll shoot you on sight." He warns her and the sorceress gives him a beatific smile.

"Oh, I know." She assures and Strange stares at her for a long moment before turning the engine over and pulling back out onto one of the main streets.

"And you think it's a good idea to meet with him?"

"It does not matter what I think. He's a member of SHIELD and has access to things that are now unavailable to me after Amora's little stunt a couple of days ago." She informs them and Bruce gives her a dubious look before sighing and looking out the window. Strange follows his lead and lets the matter lie, even if he doesn't exactly want to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the abrupt ending. I'm not at all sure if I like this chapter, but I can say that I'm better at writing Tony's POV when he talks to Loki than I am at writing Strange's POV when Tony talks to Loki. So... meh.
> 
> Oh also as a note on Loki's children:  
> Sleipnir: shapeshifter, 726 y/o  
> Fenrir: shapeshifter, swordsman, 511 y/o  
> Hela: necromancer, mage, 509 y/o  
> Jormungandr: shapeshifter, 505 y/o


	10. Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is distant, Strange is a good friend, Bruce shows where his allegiances lie, and Clint is NOT happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter does contain graphic depictions of violence that isn't typical to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

When they get back to the mansion Loki immediately disappears, leaving Bruce and Strange alone in foyer. The scientist looks after her retreating form with a frown, which only grows when Hela and two men appear from a side hall. One of them is tall with an unruly mop of black curls, dressed in jeans and a button down, while the other has brown curls and piercing amber eyes. He's dressed in loose fitting jeans and a thin, hooded shirt, almost the opposite of the other, and Bruce has no doubt that they're related. The queen looks around, noting the absence of her mother with a knitted brow before she turns to the other two.

"Where's mom?" She asks, scanning the large room to no avail. "She came back with you, right?"

"She did, but she left right after." Strange tells her, making his way up the stairs. "She's still in the mansion though."

"She didn't want to see us?" The brown haired man asks and Bruce notes the sword strapped across his back even in the safety of the house.

"I don't think that's it." He reassures them. "We've had a long day."

"That doesn't mean the same thing for us as it does for you." The man replies and the scientist sighs.

"Fen, be nice." Hela shoots over her shoulder before smiling at Bruce. "These are my brothers, Fenrir and Sleipnir."

"Bruce." He tells them, holding out a hand and both men take turns shaking it before shooting twin looks up the staircase.

"Is mother alright?" Sleipnir asks him and Bruce nods.

"She was fine up until she disappeared."

"Then she doesn't want to see us." Fenrir concludes and Hela shoots him an exasperated look.

"You don't know that." She soothes and he gives her a small, deprecating smile.

"It explains why she didn't stick around to talk to us." He tells her and it's Sleipnir's turn to frown at him.

"Why wouldn't she want to see us?" He asks his brother. "She loves us."

"Easy for you to say since you weren't the one she left chained to a rock." Fen snaps and Hela gapes at him, shock painted plain across her face.

"Fen!" She gasps. "Take that back. It's not his fault-"

"It's not his fault that the both of you got to see him while I was stranded without so much as a pity visit?" He asks angrily and Hela immediately looks guilty.

"You can't say that." Sleipnir tells him, voice rising and Bruce does his best to blend in with the wall paneling behind him.

"Why not?" Fen snaps, hands balled into fist. "It's not as if it isn't true."

"It's not! He loves you, he loves all of us, and you can't stand here and tell me that he doesn't. I won't hear it!" Sleipnir shouts back at him, before taking a deep breath. When he next speaks his voice is calmer, nearly a whisper. "I can't. He used to sit outside my stable crying after Odin locked you and Jor away. He couldn't find you because the All-Father took the knowledge from his mind in case he ever tried to set you free. He knew about Hela and I because we were considered harmless compared to you, but you don't know what not knowing did to him. It tore him apart and I had to watch it, Fen. I'm not watching it happen again, not ever."

Fen gives him a long, searching look before he seems to deflate, shoulders sagging as his anger dissipates. When Sleipnir glances over at Hela, she has tears in her eyes, although she wipes them away quickly when she notices him looking.

"Why don't you guys go talk to him?" Bruce speaks up and they all turn to him. "I mean, it couldn't exactly hurt."

Hela gives him a watery smile and sniffs. "We should, thank you." She tells him before grabbing her brothers' hands and pulling them up the stairs.

...

Stephen studies the door in front of him for a few endless seconds, trying to build up the courage to knock, before he finally just turns away with a sigh.

"You can come in, my friend." A decidedly male voice calls before he can even make it two feet away and he pauses. He turns back when the click of the lock sounds, followed by the unmistakable groan of the door opening. Loki's standing in the doorway, or sagging against it really, with a wary expression on his face and Stephen lets out a sad little sigh. The god steps aside when he enters, and he looks around as Loki goes to sit on the bed. There isn't much besides a case of daggers on the old wooden dresser and an ornate tapestry on the wall.

"Are you okay?" He asks, studying it instead of the other sorcerer on the bed. It's a backdrop of blue, white, and gold, inlaid with intricate patterns that come to twine around the figures in it. There's a younger looking Loki, obviously smiling as a girl, a wolf cub, and a snake tumble around him, a colt standing over them with it's head resting on the god's shoulder. He wonders briefly who made it, but Loki draws him from his musings when he finally replies.

"I am..." He begins, then pauses, brows knitting together as he searches for the words. "I do not know how to face my children."

That's definitely not the answer the sorcerer is expecting and it must show on his face because Loki gives a hollow sort of laugh. "Hey, don't do that."

"Do what?" Loki asks, looking down at his hands. "Doubt myself? I am afraid that I do that a lot when it comes to them."

Making his way to the bed, Strange sits and the god seems to unconsciously lean into him. "Why's that?"

"Because I am not good enough for them, not after all that I've done." Loki tells him. "Not after all that I didn't do."

"Well, that's bullshit if I ever heard it." Stephen replies and Loki's head whips up, flushed with anger. "Don't turn that pretty little glare on me, sweetheart. You know what those kids did as soon as they saw us downstairs? Oh course you don't, because you left, but if you hadn't ran off you would have seen them come in and immediately look for you."

"They're like Thor in that regard." Loki sighs and Strange shoots him a confused look. "My brother. He's always looking for a memory of me and it makes me inexplicably angry, even though he can't help it."

"Because you've changed?" He guesses and the god shakes his head.

"Because I'm not good enough anymore. My children see a loving father when they look at me, not the man who has murdered and lied to better his own position in the world. They do not see the blood on my hands, or the lies I have told. They see a memory of me, one that I cannot give them because I am not that person anymore."

"How old are you?"

"What?" Loki asks, clearly confused by the change of subject and Strange just raises an eyebrow.

"Just answer the question."

"I am nearly two thousand years old." The god tells him. "...I do not see what this has to do with the topic at hand."

"Just humor me, sweetheart. How old do gods get in Neverland?"

Loki still looks baffled but he plays along anyway. "Anywhere from four to five thousand years, give or take a few centuries."

"That explains it." The sorcerer concludes. "You're going through a midlife crisis."

The god gapes at him, eyes wide. "I beg your pardon."

"It's normal. You're feeling inadequate; everybody does, even if there's no real reason to. Hela adores you from what I've seen and I doubt that the others are any different. You're going to have to face them sooner or later, now that you're all living here, and it'll just end up hurting all of you if you drag it out over unfounded guilt."

Loki glares at him now, drawing away. "I left two of my sons to Odin's wrath and never did anything to help them. I do not think my guilt is unfounded."

"You're a powerful mage, Loki, and I admire that about you." Strange tells him. "Hell, that's one of the reasons I decided to join you in all of this. Not because I wanted to take out a Titan -although that does sound brag worthy- but because you caught my interest in a way that few people are capable of doing. So how about you stop moping around and start being that insanely confident god that I met a few days ago?"

"You're not very good at the whole niceties part of comforting people." Loki sniffs and Stephen laughs before grabbing his hand and giving it a comforting squeeze

"Why bother with empty platitudes when I can just tell you how much of a brat you're being without beating around the bush for a few endless minutes?" He replies and the god briefly wonders how his life came to to be like this, hiding from his children while a mortal sorcerer calls him names. Said sorcerer rises from the bed with a groan and makes his way over to the door, before pausing and giving Loki a serious look. "I meant what I said; talk to you children before you end up damaging your relationship more than it already is." He opens the door and grins. "Speaking of the little devils -kids, talk to your father."

Loki looks up at that, only to see his children in the doorway, with Hela in the front and his two boys bringing up the rear. They step into the room almost hesitantly and the god seems to sag, what little life he gained from his talk with Strange draining out of him. "I'm locking the door!" The doctor shouts and does just that as the room's occupants stare at each other with varying degrees of uncomfortableness. Loki begins to tell Strange that he can teleport if he so feels like it, but the door flares a pale blue as a ward is placed on it from the other side.

 _'Just in case you get any dumb ideas, sweetheart.'_  The doctor tells him mentally and Loki replies with an utterly murderous burst of emotion. Strange's laugh can be heard from down the hall in response and the god scowls at the door, before turning a considerably softer look on his children. Sleipnir is the first to break the taboo of stillness that all of them seem to be locked in, striding over to throw his arms around his father in a crushing hug.

"I'm glad that you are safe." His eldest son breathes into his shoulder and Loki wraps his arms around him in response, burying his nose into the curls on the top of his head. He looks up at his other children and Hela joins them even as Fenrir shifts uncomfortably by the door.

"I had not wanted you here," He murmurs and Fenrir immediately looks stricken, eyes widening with a mix of hurt and betrayal. "Not because of why you may think, Fenrir, but because of the danger that I have brought into my life. As I've told Hela," He gives his daughter a pointed glance. "It worries me that you have chosen to be with me when I cannot ensure your safety. I... I have failed you all before and I do not wish to do so again."

"So you decided to hide yourself from us." Fenrir concludes, muscles tense and once again Hela gives him a quelling look. "No, he cannot avoid us and then pretend to care."

"The love that I have for any of you has never been and never will be false." Loki snaps back and Sleipnir hugs him tighter in warning. "Do you honestly think that if I had any way -any at all- to find you and set you free, that I would hesitate for even a second? Your security and happiness means more to me than anything in the universe, all of you, and I will not have you tell me otherwise. Odin took everything from me when he locked you away and I will not let him do so again, not as long as there is breath in my body."

Hela and Fen study him with wide eyes, but Sleipnir seems to understand what the god isn't actually saying. Sitting on the bed beside his father, he leans into his side before reaching out and pulling his brother down beside him. The four of them don't quite fit on the queen sized bed but they manage all the same.

"You didn't want to get used to having us back in case we were stolen away from you again." Sleipnir observes and Loki goes still, stomach rolling unpleasantly as his throat tightens. His oldest son just smiles at him. "It's exactly the type of emotionally stunted move you've pull, modir. Which you can't really be blamed for, I suppose, since none of the Aesir are big on showing their feelings, being a warrior race and all."

"You are uncommonly wise for you age, brother." Hela tells him and Sleipnir's smile morphs into a proud grin.

"You get a lot of time to study people when you're stuck as a horse for nearly ten centuries." He explains and none of them exactly find humor in his words, but they smile nonetheless. "So," He turns to Fenrir. "Are you going to hug mother or am I going to have to make you?"

"You will not make me do anything." His brother huffs back, but he does reach around him to wrap his arms around his father. "I have missed you as well."

The words are whispered, soft and fragile to the ears, but Loki hears them nonetheless and the weight that had settled over his heart lifts. He hugs his son back, bent awkwardly around Sleipnir as they are. Neither of them mind and his oldest son is wise enough not to break the moment, even if Hela chooses to join in. She repeats Fenrir's words herself, dragging Sleipnir into the embrace along with her and soon all of them are huddled on the too-small bed, a pile of limbs and relief at being together again. That's how Strange finds them when he peeks his head in hours later, catching a pare of emerald green eyes through the dark. He grins and gives the god a thumbs up, receiving a grateful nod in return before Loki turns away and presses his face back against Sleipnir's chest.

...

"I don't like it." Strange says and Bruce mentally adds another tally to the near hundred he already has in his head. They're not all from the sorcerer though, since Hela, Fenrir, Sleipnir, and Amora had all objected to the plan on multiple occasions since Loki had taken the time that morning to explain it. "Come on, you all agree with me."

"I think it's more solid than anything that you've managed to come up with." Bruce tells him and Strange sags against the table with a groan. They're eating breakfast, almost like a family -if anyone would ever dare call them such a thing- and Bruce seems to be the only one that isn't in a bad mood for once. Not to say he's always in one, he's just not exactly a positive thinker. He glances over at Loki, who's frowning down at his bowl of Malt-O-Meal. The god hasn't eaten any of it and that, coupled with the downward tilt of his lips, tells Bruce all that he needs to know. The deity isn't happy, but not for the same reason as the others.

"I would appreciate it if you would reconsider, modir." Sleipnir adds from across the table and Loki sits his spoon down with a decisive clank.

"You have all done so much of that for me since I informed you of my intended actions, that I do not think my adding to it would help all that much." The god replies and his oldest son goes back to picking at his food, which means it's someone else's turn to pick up the argument.

It's Fenrir who does, swallowing the remains of his bacon before he speaks up. "Then I'll start. It's reckless and unnecessary as far as the grand scheme of things go."

"You only say that because you've never met him before. Barton has information that we need and a connection to the Avengers that's essential if we're mean to get them on our side for the war." Loki shoots back and Amora tries next, like clockwork.

"He also despises you, from what you've told us, and for good reason. I'm not saying scrap the plan entirely, but at least take someone powerful enough to help you if things go south." She tries and Bruce pointedly clears his throat. They all look at him, but he just takes a long sip of his tea in reply and the Enchantress scowls at him.

"I would feel safer if one of us went with you." Hela adds and Loki gives her an exasperated look.

"We've already gone over this, Hela." The god sighs, and they have -at length. All of the trickster's children have tried to argue their way into being taken along, but each attempt ends in a near silent war of Loki trying to back his children down from their need to protect him. Bruce understands where they're coming from, but at the same time he's more inclined to agree with the god on keeping them out of the fight until it becomes unavoidable.

"Then let me come with you." Strange says and Loki lets out a disparaging noise.

"We are trying to establish a treaty of peace, Stephen, not start a feud with SHIELD." The god reminds him, holding up a hand when the sorcerer opens his mouth to object. "I would like you and Amora to be available when Skurge finds the man he's looking for. And, if things do turn sour with Agent Barton, I would be much happier knowing that I have all of you standing by to get Banner and I out of an unpleasant situation. If you have a better plan, you have yet to show it and for now all we've managed to do was waste our morning arguing."

He looks to Banner and the doctor stands, grabbing his plate to bring it into the kitchen. Loki joins him there a few minutes later, dressed in black slacks and a forest green long-sleeve, his own plate in hand. "You know that they're just worried about you." Bruce tells him and the god nods, a tired sigh falling from his lips.

"I am well aware of that fact. I do not need them to, however, and them doing so helps me very little beyond providing me with an unwanted headache." Loki replies and holds out a hand. Bruce takes it, bracing against the feeling of his stomach trying to climb up his throat as they teleport to the road leading up to Clint's farmhouse.

They walk in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts until Bruce recalls a question that he's had since Loki informed them of his plan that morning. "How'd you know about this place anyway?"

"When I," Loki pauses, fists clenching for a few seconds before he loosens them. "When I took over Agent Barton's mind I got just as much from him as he got from me. Fears, mistakes, hopes, dreams, everything. That is why I wish to talk to him, not only because he's useful, but because out of everyone in this Realm, he knows myself and my mind better than anyone. It may not have been his choice and I may regret the things that I prompted him to do, but I do not regret the connection it granted me, not now that it may prove to be useful."

"That's not at all psychotic." Bruce tells him and the god's lips twist into a grimace.

"I have taken from him in a way that no man should take from another, even out of necessity and I wish to make amends. Whether he is willing to allow me, I do not know but..." He trails off as the house comes into view around the next corner, face grim.

"At least you tried." Bruce finishes for him and Loki nods. "You're a lot different now that you were before."

"I am not the same person that I was before." The god says simply and Bruce gets that, he really does, it's just interesting seeing the saner version of the mind that he'd previously described as a bag of cats. He has no doubt that he may be foolish for trusting Loki, but that doesn't change the fact that he does. Out of everyone in recent memory, the god is the only one that had given him the option of being himself instead of the Other Guy. Sure, it hadn't been right away, but Loki had listened to him and assured him that his life was his own, Hulk or not. And he'd be lying if he said that he didn't see the parallels between them and feel sympathy for the fallen prince.

Ahead of them the farmhouse door opens to omit an armed and angry Clint Barton. The agent falters when he sees Bruce though, face flooding with confusion even as he aims an arrow straight at Loki's head. The god steps forward, hands raised, as Barton's muscles go tense as a (ha!) bowstring. "I will allow you one shot that's not to the head or heart." Loki tells him and naturally the Avenger chooses the next best spot. The arrow sinks into the god's neck and Bruce flinches away, looking over to see a mixture of horror and satisfaction on Clint's face just before his own vision floods with a tinge of green.

 _'I do not need the Hulk right now, doctor.'_  Loki's mental voice cuts through the panic flooding his every thought and he looks down to see his hands turning green as his emotions run wild. Focusing on the fallen god beside him, he locks his other side away and crouches down to cup a hand around the wound. The Other Guy roars in reply, beating against his mental shields and the scientist has to hold back a body-wide shudder as he wills him back to his cage.

 _'You will need to remove the arrow, my friend.'_  Loki instructs him and Bruce knows that but he's not exactly looking forward to it. The god reaches a hand up and back, snapping the arrow head off with a muffled groan. His nostrils flare in pain and Bruce thinks "I'm sorry" as loud as he can before grasping the arrow's shaft tightly and ripping it free. He throws it to the side and clamps his hands around Loki's throat to keep him from drowning on his own blood.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Clint seems to shake himself from his momentary shock, glaring down at the two of them and Bruce takes a deep breath, willing his hands not to tighten as the muscles in his arms go tense.

"I'm fulfilling my oath as a doctor." He snaps back and lets out a sigh of relief as the blood trying to pump around the barrier of his hands begins to slow. There's a small smile on Loki's face and Bruce has no doubt the god would laugh if it wouldn't result in him dying of asphyxiation. Clint doesn't speak up again, but he does pull a phone from his pocket and start talking to someone in an urgent tone. Bruce has no doubt that it's either Hill or Natasha, but he's going to put his money on the latter even if the thought of the other assassin makes him feel an odd mixture of sadness, anger, and betrayal.

He removes his hands slowly once Loki nods, and can't hide his wince at the sight of the god's skin stitching itself back together, the occasional flickers of green magic speeding the process along more than is normal, even by Aesir standards. He's done enough tests on Thor for curiosity's sake to know that the trickster should still have a near gaping wound to contend with instead of the scar tissue that's beginning to pinken as it heals. Sitting up with a grimace, Loki turns his attention to Clint, who shoves his phone away with a snapped good-bye and draws another arrow.

"I said one shot, Agent Barton, not several." The god reminds him, voice raw and whispery. "While I am sure that you have a healthy hatred for me, I did not come here to become your personal target board." Taking the hand that Bruce offers him, he rises to his feet and clears his throat with a wince.

"I don't really think you expected anything less." Bruce mumbles, more to himself than anything, but the god hears him and smiles in reply.

"I am here to apologize and offer you the opportunity of a treaty." Loki tells Clint, standing tall and confident despite the arrow wound marring his neck.

Clint narrows his eyes at him, his new arrow still aimed steadily at the god's heart. Letting out an impatient huff of air, Bruce steps in between his two friends and crosses his arms. "Stop stalling." He snaps and the archer lowers his bow in surprise. "SHIELD's already on their way if I know anything about them and even if they're not, the Avengers will be. We came here to talk, Clint, not fight."

"You came to my family's home with a homicidal god, Bruce!" The SHIELD agent retorts. "I don't think peace was really anywhere on your mind. Unless, you really want me to believe that you fell for that asshole's charms."

"I didn't fall for anything." The scientist's voice is laced with annoyance and Clint's bow goes right back up, eyes searching his friend's for any hint of green. "There are things happening that are bigger than us, Clint. Things that you wouldn't believe if you weren't on a team with a Thunder God, so please, just hear us out."

"I'll listen to you," Clint agrees after a full minute of silence, voice hard. "But if he says a single thing, I'm putting an arrow in his head and making sure that he stays down until Thor can drag his ass back to Asgard in chains."

Bruce lets out a sigh of relief, a smile flitting across his face even as he shifts to hide Loki from Clint's field of view. He has no doubt that the god is grinning in that unnerving way of his, something that usually happens when the magic user gets his way, and he doesn't need Loki pissing Clint off just when they got him to listen by looking smug about it. Motioning for the god to stay put, he raises his hands in a show of peace and steps toward the archer, who lowers his bow completely and drags him into a hug. Hiding his surprise well beyond a startled chuckle, he hugs him back, a smile gracing his face when his friend tells him that he's glad to see him safe and happy, maniac gods notwithstanding.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Abrupt ending! (Not gonna lie, I thought about leaving y'all with a cliff-hanger...) You'll get the remainder of their visit with Clint in the next chapter. If I kept the whole thing together this update would be way too long, especially since it's nearly at my five thousand word limit.
> 
> Also, I'm so sorry that this update took longer than normal. I'm moving and dealing with personal issues at the moment, so the next couple of chapter will be a little slow in coming. Besides all that mess, I hope you liked the chapter and would appreciate any comments you feel like giving. :D


	11. Mothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has a talk with a fellow mother and bakes some cookies, Clint asks for a favor, Hela gets a mission, and Bruce makes a phone call.

Bruce is about halfway through explaining what he knows of Loki's plan when the god next speaks, casting a quick spell to clean the blood from his skin and clothing. "I'm afraid that I have to leave the two of you briefly, Amora has called." He tells the scientist and when he sees Clint shift out of the corner of his eye, he turns to the archer with a dangerous smile. "If you shoot me again, Agent Barton, I will take your bow and reduce it to an unrecognizable lump of plastic and metal."

Clint narrows his eyes at him in response and Loki only smiles wider before turning to Bruce. There's a look of trepidation on the doctor's face, as if he's worried about being left alone with his former teammate but he doesn't speak on his displeasure. "Is everyone okay?"

"Of course, she didn't sound too urgent in her message but I would not like to keep her waiting nonetheless." Loki lies easily, turning to Clint. "I will be back soon, but I must ask that you do not harm Bruce in any way while I am gone."

The archer gives him an offended look, a frown marring his face, before he gives a curt nod. Satisfied, Loki gathers a burst of magic and teleports into the hall within the front of the farmhouse, a quick illusion giving the impression that the door has opened and closed to anyone that is within the home. Shifting into his female form, she taps a quick knock on the wall and pokes her head around the corner. "Excuse me?" She calls, checking over her jeans and t-shirt with a quick glance to make sure she looks presentable.

"In the kitchen." A woman, Laura, if she remembers correctly, calls from further in the house and Loki makes her way to the room to find Baton's family gathered around the table, splashes of flour covering all of them in a fine dust of white.

"I apologize for intruding." The goddess says in way of greeting, smiling down at the children that are familiar to her by way of stolen memories. "You must be Laura."

Laura smiles, wiping off her hands with a damp rag before offering one to Loki. "Yep, that's me. And you are...?"

"Farbauti Hyrr-Gud," She finishes, shaking her hand with a softer grip than she's capable of, all too aware of the frailty of the mortal in front of her. "I am an associate of your husband's and I figured that it was about time that I met you."

Laura hides her surprise well, stunned and happy as it is. "He's never mentioned you before now."

"Ah, but he has mentioned you," Loki looks over at the two children cutting shapes into the dough in front of them with a fond smile. "And your children. You're baking?"

"Yeah, normally we don't, but I figured that we'd send Clint on his way with some cookies, especially since I promised the team some last time they were here."

"Mind if I help?"

"I didn't think you agent types were really all that into making cookies." Laura chuckles and Loki's smile turns genuine, a soft laugh falling from her lips.

"I have to be honest, I've never tried before." She admits, following Clint's wife further into the kitchen. "However, I can make an excellent chicken soup if pressured to." Which isn't exactly a lie. Thor and his friends had never stooped low enough to cook during their quests and they often found themselves without any nearby inns during their travels to buy supper from. It had either been cook or starve and Loki had learned how to make a variety of foods because of it.

"I'll have to take your word on that." Laura replies, grabbing a bowl with a lump of dough in it and handing it over. "You can start by rolling that out if you want."

Taking it, Loki removes the ball of dough and spreads a handful of flour out onto the table before pressing the ball into it. She flattens it out in measured movements, watching as Barton's children begin a short but messy war with the flour before Laura stops them with a stern look. "You are much better at that than I ever was."

"You have kids?" Laura asks, looking up at her as she measures out a few cups of brown sugar.

"Yes, four of them." The goddess hums, frowning as she thinks of her unspoken two sons. It's best not to bring them up, not in casual conversation, but she feels a pang nonetheless, as if she's wiping their memory by hiding them from the world. "A daughter and three sons."

"Then I'm close." Laura adds. "I have a girl and a boy, with another on the way."

Loki glances down at her stomach, noting the swell their with a hint of nostalgia. "How far along are you?"

"Oh god, nearly eight months, but this little guy is trying his hardest to surprise me with an early birth." She rubs her stomach, smearing flour over her shirt. "We're naming him Nathaniel after his aunt and uh, Pietro, after a friend of Clint's."

"Nathaniel Pietro Barton." Loki tries it out, letting it roll across her tongue before she nods. "That is a lovely name. I take it Nathaniel is after Natasha or Natalia, if you're going off her given name."

"You know her?"

"Not well, but we've met." One of the children, the little boy named Cooper, if her memory is accurate, hands her a star shaped cookie cutter and she accepts it with a gracious nod. Laura watches her out of the corner of her eye, a small smile gracing her lips as she begins mixing the next batch of dough. They work in silence for a while, in which Lila teaches her how to set the stove to the right temperature, voice serious and confident. Loki thanks her with all the solemnity that she would show her own children when they came to her with new things to show. The girl looks impossibly proud of herself, beaming at her mother, who grins back at her with a quick thumbs up.

Soon the smell of baking dough fills the kitchen, the room temperture rising by increments as the stove heats. Cooper and Lila help her spread out the next batch of formed cookies on a thin metal sheet, bickering over the placement before they finally settle on letting Loki decide. Or really, they both ask Loki which of them is right and the god tries to combine both of their ideas with as much patience as she can. She has to admit that she likes Barton's children. Whether or not that's residual feedback from her connection to the archer, she does not know, but she can't help the gentle smile that curves her lips when she looks at them. She can honestly say that she's smiled more around Clint's little family than she has since her return to Midgard, not counting her flirtatious back and forths with Stephen.

Laura strikes up short conversations whenever things have been too quiet for too long; mostly small talk that Loki had long ago learned to navigate with grace and as much honesty as her nature permits. It's downtime that she hasn't had the chance to get often while preparing for the coming war and she finds herself cherishing it as much as she does her talks with her team. That's another thought that makes her hum low in her throat as she retrieves the finished cookies from the oven, the thought that she now has a team of friends and family that she enjoys the company of, one of which is a former enemy. Her life has certainly changed, she muses with a small chuckle before Amora's borrowed phone chimes in her pocket.

She fishes it out of her jeans with a sigh, glancing down to see a text from Bruce, telling her that Barton wishes to speak with her. Looking up, she directs an apologetic smile Laura's way as she wipes the dough from her hands. "I've been called back outside. Apparently the men are finished talking." She tells her with an eye roll and Laura laughs.

"Best not to keep them waiting, then." She fishes around for a plastic bag in one of the drawers before filling it with cookies and handing it over. "Figured you deserved some, since you helped make them."

Loki looks down at the offering, noting the dark smudges of chocolate in the sweets. "Thank you." She says, tone sincere as she takes them from the woman. She says good-bye to Barton's children individually, giving each of them a parting smile before she makes her way to the front hall. Vanishing the cookies to a pocket of space for safekeeping, she shifts back into her male form and teleports onto the front lawn. Clint and Bruce are there to greet him, no worse than how he left them and he figures that their conversation went well.

"What happened?" The scientist asks him in a quiet voice and Loki shakes his head.

"Nothing that can't wait until we're home." He replies before giving his full attention to Barton. "You wished to speak with me?"

"Yeah," Clint says, looking none too happy but almost... hopeful at the same time. "I remember you having a daughter... From when we- When you-"

Loki stiffens, eyes narrowing to near murderous slits and Bruce lays a calming hand on his arm. The god ignores it, stepping closer to the archer in warning. "What of her?"

"She can bring back the dead, right?" The SHIELD agent asks in a rush. "If I wanted you to bring someone back, could she do it?"

"And why would she or I want to do that?" Loki returns, manner switching from dangerous to curious in a split second.

Clint glares at him, anger showing through in the tenseness of his muscles. "Because you owe me for all the shit that you put me through, you asshole, and you know it. So if I want you to do something as an incentive for me to even think about believing whatever story you've had Bruce tell me, I expect something out of it."

"Expect?" Loki murmurs lowly, taking a few steps forward so that he's towering over the archer. "Did you forget who I am, Agent Barton? I am a god, in case it slipped your little mind and I am not to be ordered, even if I may owe you a boon for the liberties I took with your mind."

"Then I'm not ordering." Barton reneges, not backing down even a little, much to Loki's disappointment. "Can she do it?"

"Who do you want back so badly that you'd ask me for a favor?" Loki deflects and Clint lets out an imperceptible sigh of relief, taking his question as acquiescence.

"He helped us fight in a recent battle and he saved my life along with a little boy's. I want you to bring him back."

"Are you feeling guilt, Little Hawk?" Loki chuckles, eyes deadly serious as he searches the other.

"Don't call me that." Clint snaps and the god grins.

"I will need a name,  _Agent Barton_." He finally says and the archer gives him a stunned look.

"Pietro, Pietro Maximoff."

...

Loki studies the small, silver key in his hand with open curiosity once they arrive back at the mansion. It is worn and smudged with years worth of oily fingerprints, obviously old but well cared for. Barton had given it to him when he'd asked for something of Pietro's to help his daughter find him and he has no doubt there is a story behind the seemingly insignificant object. When he looks at it from a metaphysical perspective, it hums with time and untold memories, cherished ones and ones filled with grief and pain. Flipping it between his fingers with a distracted noise, he looks up to see Hela standing in his doorway.

"You wanted to see me?" She asks and Loki nods, handing over the key for her perusal.

"I have a task for you, my dear." He tells her as she looks it over and her eyes light up with near childlike eagerness despite her five centuries of age. "I need you to retrieve a soul from beyond the halls of Helheim for me. You still have regular correspondence with the other pantheons, do you not?"

Hela frowns down at him. "Of course. I'll need more than a key if I'm going to bring someone back though. For instance, what was his belief system?"

"He and his sister are Romani, apparently." Loki wrinkles his nose. "Kali never did like me very much."

Hela cracks up at that, quiet laughter tumbling from her as her eyes light up. "Maybe because you tried to seduce her in order to steal her Power."

Loki sighs at that, an irritated puff of air as he remembers the fierce, blue skinned goddess with ancient black eyes that he'd tried to entice in his youth. He had been foolish then, set on gaining power and influence from dangerous beings. Kali had been one such being, a Goddess of Death with a remarkably battle prowess, beauty, and tendency to reduce men to footstools when the mood took her. Loki had wanted her for the sake of wanting, for the chance to say that he had tamed the untamable. But Kali was never one to be tamed and she had taken great pleasure in putting him in his place, much like many of the other deities had. It had led him to many unpleasant situations, along with many of the other pantheons having a rocky relationship with Hela as a result of his actions.

Still, "She is rather beautiful, even with the arms." Loki hums, a hand coming up to cup under his chin. "She tried to run me through once she found out that I was manipulating her."

"I wonder why." His daughter mumbles as Loki lets out a nostalgic sigh. "If you keep it up, I might have to tell Strange."

"I'm sure he'd appreciate her beauty just as much as I do." Loki chuckles, rising from his seat. "I would like you to take Fenrir with you when you go."

She pauses, not quite wide-eyed but still surprised. "Fen?"

"He's never seen your kingdom before and I'm sure he'd enjoy the opportunity to spend time with you. Not to mention he'll probably talk his way into going anyway." Loki tells her and Hela frowns briefly before nodding.

"When did you want us to go?" She asks and Loki rises from the bed he'd been sitting on, motioning for her to follow him out of the room.

"You can go whenever you wish, but I ask that you stick around until after I've talked to the others." He says, sending a mental call to meet in the dining room out to the rest of his team. By the time they arrive, the others are already gathered around the table with various expressions of interest. Well all of them besides Bruce, who is already aware of what transpired at Barton's, and Amora, who looks faintly bored.

Pulling a chair out for his daughter, he takes the seat to her right and gives the rest of them a smug look.

"I take it by that self-satisfied look on your face that things went well." Amora greets and snorts when Loki only smiles wider.

"As well as could be expected." He admits, expression dimming to a more neutral one. "I managed to strike a deal with him thanks to Bruce." The doctor looks startled, opening his mouth to object but Loki just shoots him an arch look, one elegant eyebrow rising as if to dare him to speak in the contrary. With a huff, Bruce sits back in his chair and crosses his arms.

Strange looks between the two of them with open curiosity. "What kind of deal?"

"I would have Hela retrieve a soul from the afterlife it's residing in, in exchange for him considering the validity of my claims."

"Considering?" Fen speaks up, annoyed. "He didn't believe you?"

"Mortals seem to take the title 'God of Lies' quite seriously." said god laments. "Barton especially, since I've wronged him deeply in the past. As he so eloquently put it, I owe him him for all the shit that I put him through."

Strange lets out a sharp laugh. "Well that was positively dirty coming from you, sweetheart."

"I can guarantee you that I have said much more vulgar things in my lifetime than you could fathom." Loki tells him, lips curling up with a seductive tilt and Sleipnir groans.

"Not in front of us, modir." He chides. "I think Doctor Banner might just sink through the floor in mortification."

"I'm not a blushing virgin, you know." Bruce grumbles back and Amora watches on with eyes bright with mischief.

"I don't know," She hums, turning to Loki with an innocent look. "It has been an awful long time since you got laid."

Loki gapes at her, a flush of anger -he is not embarrassed, not by something so insignificant- crawls up his neck, while Strange nearly tumbles from his chair with laughter. Looking over at the sorcerer with annoyance, he huffs and turns back to Amora. "I don't see how you could possibly know that, vacant for as long as you have been."

"You know that was not by my choice." She shoots back and Bruce clears his throat.

"Could we maybe get back on track here?" He asks and all of Loki's children shoot him gracious looks. "If Hela does manage to get Pietro back, then we'll at least get Clint to think about helping us when we need him to and we'll also have a sorceress in our debt."

"Sorceress?" Amora asks, puzzled and Loki makes a soft noise, mouth forming into a near perfect o as he remembers something.

"He is the the brother of the woman Stark spoke of." He murmurs and Strange sits up straighter.

"Then we'll have three people in our debt." He chimes in, looking smug. "The witch, the brother, and Stark."

Bruce gives him a confused look. "Why would Tony be included into all of this?"

"Because Stark and Pietro's sister have been fighting ever since Pietro died." Loki informs him. "He was most likely her anchor to her powers and the fact that he's gone has thrown her off balance. She compensates by going after Stark, if I'm not mistaken, since they both feel that he's to blame for the loss of her family member."

"You're kidding." Bruce sounds baffled and... sad, almost and Loki gives him a reassuring smile.

"He can hold his own in a fight, from what I remember." He tells the scientist but Banner just shakes his head.

"It's not his physical health I'm worried about." He sighs, standing up from the table. "I think it's about time I called him."

Loki hides the triumphant grin that's trying to show on his face well, dipping his head in acknowledgement instead. "Remember what I told you about your armor." He says in way of farwell and Bruce waves an agreement at him before leaving the room. Digging his phone from his pocket, he looks through it for the familiar nickname that Tony had assigned himself before giving it to him. He presses it to his ear once he's in one of the side rooms -a huge library, by the looks of it- and taps his foot on the ground.

"BRUCE!" Tony answers after the third ring, voice laced with excitement and relief and a jumble of other emotions that the scientist can't quite place, but with enough volume that the he has to pull the phone away from his ear.

"Hey Tony..." He greets hesitantly and he can hear the sound of a slamming door through the line as his friend tells Friday not to let him be disturbed.

"Don't 'hey Tony' me." His friend snaps back and Bruce grimaces. He's definitely mad then. "Where are you? What's going on?"

"Nothing bad, if that's what you're thinking. I'm just staying with some friends in New York."

"Friends?" Tony repeats, clearly dubious and Bruce bites down a sigh.

"Yes, friends. It's not that crazy of an occurrence." He replies and Tony lets out a mocking little laugh.

"Don't be an ass, Bruce." He tells him. "Wait, did you say New York?"

"Is your hearing okay?"

"Yes, but I can just honestly say that I'm offended that you haven't come to see me yet." Tony laments and Bruce resolutely reminds himself to never mention the fact that he'd been right outside Stark Tower barely a week ago.

"You know why I couldn't." He reminds the inventor and Tony makes a disparaging noise.

"The Tower is an Avenger free zone at the moment." He tells him. "If you want to stay here, then I can revoke access to the others."

"I don't need you to do that, Tony. I'm fine where I am." Bruce reassures and Tony lets out a disappointed sigh.

"But think of the labs, Bruce." The inventor despairs, voice so full of unbridled drama that the scientist can't help but chuckle a little. "They miss you."

"I'm sure they do." He knows it's not just the labs either, that Tony probably misses his labmate just as much, but he... He likes it here, away from the fighting and the noise and the people that need him just because he can destroy a building if his temper flips. "I'm happy where I am; they like me here and I don't have to worry about being the Hulk."

"You're friends know about the Other Guy?" Tony asks, clearly stunned.

"Well he did kind of reduce one of them into a floor decoration." Bruce says, then sucks in a sharp breath as he realizes what he just gave away. Tony makes a choking noise from down the line.

"You're staying with Loki?" The inventor gasps, sounding strangled and the other man groans. "Are you in his super secret lair or something? Does it have skulls and racks?"

"It's not a lair, Tony." Bruce sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's actually pretty nice." And it is, he has to admit. Strange obviously has taste, even if it does tend to stray toward the overly grandeur and expensive.

"Describe 'pretty nice'." Tony shoots back, voice laced with interest and Bruce settles himself for an increasingly frustrating conversation.

...

Tony hangs up the phone a few minute later with a sigh, a smile flickering across his lips. He'd thought that once he finally talked to Bruce again he'd be able to convince him to come back, but now he's not so sure. His friend sounds better than he's ever heard him, the stress that usually laces his voice with an undertone of tiredness nowhere in sight. He can't deny the hint of sadness that sends through him, the thought that Loki had been better for Bruce than he had, but he shakes his head to rid it of such notions. Bruce had been adamant that Tony stop blaming himself for so much, a conversation topic that confused him as much as it comforted. Still, he's never been one to ignore a friends advice. Well, at least not all the time, and he knows that the scientist meant to give him some type of solace over all the crap that's been happening lately.

Looking down at the phone in his hand, he flips it over a few times before a thought occurs to him. "Friday, did you happen to get a trace on his phone?"

"You did specify that I do so if Doctor Banner ever called." She reminds him and Tony rolls his eyes.

"Maybe a little less sass, Siri, thanks." He chides, tucking his cell back into his jeans.

"Of course, sir." She concedes. "Miss Romanov would like me to inform you that she wishes to speak with you."

"Put her on." He tells her, waving a hand as he begins tampering with his new Mark Forty-Two armor.

"I'm afraid I can't do so, considering she's in the living room, sir."

Spinning in his chair a little, Tony stops when he's facing in the approximate direction of one of Friday's sensors. "She's here, like here, as in the Tower here?"

"She arrived around the time your call from Doctor Banner came in." The AI tells him and Tony huffs, sitting his soldering iron back in it's cradle.

"She couldn't have come down?" He not quite complains and if Friday could sigh, he has no doubt she would.

"She insisted that you talk in the living room." She answers simply and Tony gets up with a half-annoyed breath of air.

Pressing the button for the elevator, he reminds Friday to send the results for the trace to his phone and makes his way upstairs. The lift arrives on the communal floor of the Tower with a too cheerful ding -he's been meaning to fix that; his Tower is not a hotel, thank you very much- and he immediately spots two familiar blondes, one of which looks like a kicked puppy while the other, Steve, eyes him with disapproval.

"Traitor." Tony mutters, knowing that Friday will hear him, before focusing his attention on the red-head lounging by his bar.

Natasha's in full on assassin mode, all neutral expression and deadly grace as she stalks up to him and taps her cell phone against his chest. "You'll never guess what an interesting conversation I just had with Clint." She says in greeting, voice a mixture of annoyance and disappointment.

Well shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be so much better, I promise. I don't know why, but I couldn't write this one the way I wanted to to save my life. The tone's all off and Tony sounds ooc to me.
> 
> Fun fact! Most of the development of this story's plot was written because I wanted Pietro back and everything else kind of fell into place after I outlined Clint's bargain with Loki.
> 
> Another fun fact! Loki introduces himself as Farbauri to Laura, which is his father's name in Norse mythology and his mother's name in canon. His "last name" Hyrr-Gud literally means Fire-God.


	12. Warriors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amora gives a history lesson concerning Titans, Tony does what he does best, Hela leaves to find a Goddess of Death, and Thor's friends arrive to screw everything up.

Jessica has a very short patience for people that try to play her. It shows up in her SHIELD files every now and then, her complete refusal to cooperate when pushed the wrong way. Some people might call it a character flaw, God knows how many of her commanding officers have tried -unsuccessfully- in the past to get her to tone it down a little, but in all honestly she would rather have people think she's insubordinate than become a doormat to anyone's ego.

That being said, she wasn't at all happy to find out that her neighbor had been duping her this entire time to get at SHIELD. She like's Christine -or Amora, if that's even the woman's real name. She really doesn't know anymore, and that annoys her more than anything else. But anyway, she likes her neighbor and that's exactly why she's calmly knocking on her door instead of kicking it in like she wants to.

It takes a while for Chris-  _Amora_  to answer, but when she does it's with a bright smile and a happy hello. Jessica punches her in the face. She rolls with the punch, blonde hair shifting as she turns to the side a little. It's a solid blow and pain shoots up the other woman's arm in response. Amora's smile dims a little, becoming more neutral as her eyes lose their glitter of false greeting and go infinitely more calculating.

"I suppose I deserved that." She says and Jessica snorts. Yeah, no kidding.

"Are you going to invite us in or are we going to settle this in the hall?"

Amora looks behind her for the first time and spots Miles, who gives her a betrayed sort of look even if he does wave, same as he always does. "Hey, Christine."

"You can call me Amora now." She motions for them to follow her into the apartment. "Although, in all honestly, I did like Christine."

Jessica lets out an annoyed huff. "Yeah, well, I did too. Too bad she turned out to be a lie."

"That was more for my own safety than any need to lie to you." Amora replies, gesturing toward one of the couches. The heroes sit, looking around curiously despite the fact that they've been in her living room numerous times over the years that she's lived here on Midgard. "You have questions to ask me, do you not?"

Jessica sits, crossing one leg over the other. "What did you need the SHIELD files for?"

"Recruiting."

"Recruiting for what?" Miles asks, brows not quite furrowed. There's a keen interest shining his eyes and Amora shoots a near blinding smile his, causing him to flush a little.

"A war." Amora tells him and Jessica's eyes widen before her face loses all colour. She stands abruptly and the goddess raises an eyebrow. "Not with you, honey. With a Titan."

"And a Titan is...?"

Amora turns to Miles, opening her mouth to reply, but a current travels through her body, flashing in her mind with a burst of urgency.  _'I need you, Amora.'_  Loki's mental voice is strained, as if he's concentrating intensely on something else while calling for her and Amora stands with a curse. "Forgive me, but-"

"Sit down." Jessica commands, pointing a finger at her vacated chair. "You leave and I stop giving you the benefit of the doubt." Amora sits, even if her lips do curl down into an angry frown. "Good. Now explain what a Titan is."

"Titans, or Eternals, if the Greeks are to be believed when it comes to anything, are an evolutionary branch of humanity that possess greater powers than most other species this side of the galaxy and a lifespan that makes the average human look like a mayfly." Amora begins and she can tell that she has their attention, even if Loki's calls are starting to give her a headache. She sends a quick  _'Not now!'_  back her friend's way and the other god goes blessedly quiet. Giving the Spiders her full attention, she leans back and crosses her arms over her chest. "They were created about a million years ago, give or take a few centuries, by a race of beings called the Celestials. These beings came to Midgard, your Earth, to tamper with the genetic codes of your early ancestors. According to legend, they sped up the evolutionary process for a scant few of your antecedents and gave them the genetic potential to mentally manipulate limited quantities of cosmic energy."

"I'm not even going to touch on how that could even be possible." Miles laments, his eyes already calculating despite his words. "But why would they do all of that? What was their purpose?"

"They wanted to test the adaptability of the human genome," Amora replies. "Although no one really knows the answer to why they did wanted to. I suppose it was boredom."

"Boredom?" Jessica raises an eyebrow at her, a frown marring her face. It expresses just how dubious she is of Amora's words and the goddess sighs.

"When you live for a long time, the lack of having anything interesting to do can cause you to do drastic things. I imagine the same could be said for an immortal race of near all-powerful beings. Now when the Celestial's first came to your planet, they created the Titans and the Deviants, what most of you write off as demons and devils due to their monstrous appearances. The also planted the seeds of DNA within the human race that would later bring about the beings that you all so unoriginally call Mutants."

"You said first, when they first came." Jessica points out and Amora waves an impatient hand at her, relieving her of her ability to talk.

"Yes, I did, didn't I?" She smiles sweetly at the other woman, noting how Miles sinks all that much lower in his seat to remain unnoticed. "If you would stop interrupting me, I might actually be able to finish this little history lesson and move on to what it has to do with you and SHIELD. When I remove that spell, you will stay silent or I will return you to a mute for the rest of the day. Are we clear?"

Jessica nods, eyes narrowed in anger, and Amora removes the spell with another small gesture before folding her hands atop the table. The other woman flips her the bird, but stays resolutely quiet so Amora overlooks the insult. For now, that is. She can't promise not to get retribution later.

"As I was saying, the Celestials created the Eternals, the Deviants, and the sprouts of current day Mutants within the human race. Twenty-five thousand years ago they came back to check the progress of their projects only to find the Eternals had left to inhabit the moon Titan, thus gaining their name, and that the Deviants had progressed unsatisfactorily. To rectify this mistake, they destroyed the Deviants main stronghold, Lemuria, in the hopes of galvanizing their creations to do better. This only resulted in the city of Atlantis sinking due to the shifting of tectonic plates that the destruction of Lemuria caused, along with the Deviants regressing into myth and legend out of fear.

"Twenty-four thousand years after that visit, the Celestials came back a third and final time only to be met by Zeus, King of the Olympians, and Odin All-father, King of the Nine Realms. The Celestials expressed concern that intervention by the gods was setting your race back in terms of evolutionary maturity and so the gods made a promise to sever their ties to humanity. Of course you still kept faithful to your religions until the concept of paganism came about." She wrinkles her nose. "But, eventually we did descend into myths, as all beings are wont to do."

"And you want to go to war with them?" Miles asks incredulously once she's finished, voice a mix between a strangled yelp and an outraged shout.

"Correction. I only plan of going to war against one of them, an outcast of their race named Thanos."

"That doesn't explain why you needed SHIELD files." Jessica speaks up, apparently getting fed up with staying silent. "It's magic and gods against more magic and gods; why drag us into this?"

"Because even as gods, we are not invincible. We needed the help of extraordinary beings and SHIELD could provided a means for us to find them."

"You need heroes." Miles breaths, face lighting up with excitement and Amora nods.

"Thanos is extremely powerful and bent on the destruction of as much life in the universe as he can accomplish. A friend of mine devised a plan to stop him and I have been helping him, despite the compromises that had to be made to my own life because of it." Amora tells them and Jessica looks up at the ceiling, seemingly looking for an answer, before she finally drops her head with an exasperated sigh.

"Okay, explain this plan of yours before I remember exactly how bad of an idea trusting you is likely to be." She says and the goddess across from her grins, eyes going bright as she leans forward and begins.

...

Natasha can honestly say that few things have shocked her more in her life than Clint informing her that Loki's back on Earth. Adding on the fact that Bruce, who had been missing for the last month, is tagging along with the god in his quest to "save" the planet, she's about ready to punch a wall. Suddenly all the ill-told lies that Tony had been feeding her for the last week make so much more sense and she can't say she's at all happy to be standing in front of him with the knowledge that he's a possible traitor eating at her mind. He doesn't react when she informs him of Clint's call beyond a slight widening of his eyes and it's then that she feels the stone lying in her stomach turn into a hollow sort of feeling. She's at a momentary loss for words, eyes roving over his face for some clue that this is a joke, albeit a very poor one, but all she sees is a man that just got caught doing something he knows he wasn't supposed to.

"What were you thinking?" She wants to shout it, wants to break composure so badly, but it comes out as a hurt sort of whisper, and she watches as her friend's eyes go shuttered. "He's a fugitive, Tony."

"He's on parole?" The inventor tries to joke and Steve's jaw clenches in a way that means he's probably biting his tongue to keep from saying something rude.

"It doesn't work like that and you know it." He not quite snaps. "He killed people, a lot of them. Men, women, children. Our friends."

"While under duress." Thor adds from the couch and Tony shoots him an appreciative look.

"Exactly. From what I saw when I talked to him, he wasn't exactly in the best condition when he came down here." He tells Natasha and she frowns. "Look, I know you saw the security footage from when he took the Tesseract. You're a spy, Nat, you know what the aftermath of torture looks like."

"I also know that it can be worked around. He didn't need to resort to the things that he did."

Steve nods. "There really isn't any reason for us to trust him, Tony."

Thor looks at his friend for a long moment, a frown stretching his lips down as he seems to chew over what he's about to say. Then he sighs, shoulders straightening as he turns to Steve with an apology already shining in his eyes. "Would you say the same for James?" He asks solemnly and Steve immediately looks stricken, face a mixture of anger and intense sadness.

"That's different." He protests and Tony winces at the raw betrayal in the Captain's voice.

"But what if it was not?" Thor replies and Natasha eyes him with a cautious look.

"You believe him," She interrupts, voice laced with disbelief. "After all that he's done?"

Thor turns to her with a look of such utter patience that Tony shirks away a little. Yikes. "I would be a fool to trust in him after all that has transpired in recent years, but yes, I do believe that your world is facing an imminent threat. It has been nearly twenty thousand years since the Infinity Gems have been active and so far we have encountered three of them in a little over two years time. I have no allusions that such an occurrence is merely happenstance, but whether that means that the Mad Titan is indeed planning to target your Realm, I cannot say."

"I can." Tony cuts in, remembering his first glimpse of the Titan from his dreams with Loki. "He wants death and he wants a lot of it, but in order to accomplish the wholesale destruction that he needs to catch the attention of his Lady Love, he needs the Infinity Gems. We currently know where three of those are and he doesn't." They all give him confused looks and he sighs, because, really, is he the only person that pays attention anymore? "The Tesseract, which is in Asgard if I'm not mistaken," Thor nods. "The Aether, also in Asgard."

"Not anymore." Thor corrects. "Loki had it taken to a man in the far reaches of the Galaxy for safe keeping during his short tenure as King."

Tony hums. Interesting. "Is it safe?" Natasha asks and Thor dips his head, a reassuring smile gracing his lips.

"The man he gave it to is a Collector of very rare and powerful things. He also happens to reside in a heavily guarded part of the Galaxy, run as it is by outlaws and criminals."

"That doesn't sound very safe." Steve points out and Thor chuckles.

"There is no worse place to be than between a criminal and his spoils. If the Mad Titan does indeed make a play for the Collector, he will be met with a veritable force of morally ambiguous con-artists."

"And the last one?" Natasha prompts and Tony turns to her with a grin.

"Vision has it." He tells her and both she and Steve assume various startled expression, even if the assassin does recover first.

"How'd he come across an Infinity Gem without any of us noticing?" She demands and Tony's grin only widens, smugness radiating from him in waves.

"It was in Loki's little Glow Stick of Destiny, which got misappropriated and take apart for the sake of a Frankenstein re-enactment. By the way, nice going there, big fella." He tells Thor and the god ducks his head with a smile. "My guess is that he has the mind gems since he's all," He imitates a classic b-movie monster walk. "I have to say, I wouldn't mind getting a look into that head of his to see just how it's working."

Thor scowls at him. "You will do no such thing." He intones and Tony holds up his hands in an innocent gesture.

"I can totally do a brain scan without opening him up, Hammer Time. Relax." The inventor reassures him and Steve sighs.

"Can we get-" He starts but is cut off as Loki arrives in the common room, Bruce holding one of his hands as he hugs an unconscious man close to his other side. He barely spares any of them a glance, using magic to jump the distance of to the couch in a split second so that he can deposit the man on top of the cushions. Natasha draws a gun on him, but he ignores her, turning to Tony with what could almost be called trust if he was anyone else.

"See that they are kept safe, Stark." He commands, leaving just as abruptly as he came and they all stare after him for a split second before Tony breaks the silence with a groan.

"Since when did I become a babysitter for the gods?" He asks and Thor shoots him an annoyed look before he strides over to the man on the couch and crouches beside him.

"Sleipnir?" He calls softly and turns to Bruce when he gets no response. "What has happened?"

"Loki knocked him out." He begins and cuts Natasha off before she can say anything when he notices her open her mouth. He can't hear her voice, not right now. "A couple of warriors came down from Asgard to bring him and his children back, so he sent the both of us here."

"What of Hela," The god asks, voice troubled. "Why is she not here?"

"She and Fenrir left a few minutes before your friends arrived. They're going to try and talk a Goddess of Death into bringing Pietro back to life as a favor for Clint."

"Clint?" Natasha's voice is carefully neutral when she speaks, soft and unobtrusive, but Bruce still takes an unconscious step away from her. She shoots him a hurt look and the scientist ignores her, turning to Thor instead.

"Do you think you could maybe get them to stop?" He asks the god and Thor nods, grabbing his hammer as he rises.

"I will need to know where he is." He tells him, but Tony's already typing a command into his phone before he even finishes speaking.

"No need, I already know where he is." He tells the Thunder God and Bruce sends him a questioning look. "I had Friday trace your call when we talked earlier."

Bruce sighs at that, not even bothering to feel betrayed at Tony's antics anymore. "At least when you do something likely to piss people off, it comes in handy later."

Tony grins, holding his arms out as his suit wraps around him like second skin. "That's the spirit." He encourages, voice going metallic as his faceplate slides shut. "Friday, be a dear and open the sunroof."

"You have a landing port on the balcony, sir." She reminds him, voice echoing in his ear as the glass above him slides back to reveal clear blue sky.

"But then I'd scratch the marble." He points out as he takes off, Thor close on his heels, and her voice is laced with enough sarcasm to strip paint when she nexts speaks.

"How considerate of you, sir."

Tony frowns, turning in a wide arch to head toward Fourteenth Street. "I can still reprogram you, you know."

"I live in fear of when that day comes, sir." She practically drawls and Tony lets out a laugh as he cuts through the America's, coming to an abrupt stop to hover above Loki's friend from the other day. The Sorcerer looks up at him with a mixture of relief and consternation before jabbing a finger toward a big man with a sword that's running at him.

"Friday, set all blasts to stun." He instructs his AI when Strange orders him to shoot -not because he's listening to him, or anything, it's just the obvious thing to do. He lets off a drastically reduced pulse of energy from his gauntlets when she confirms his request, and the shot hits the man in the side, sending him flying to the left and away from Stephen. Tony watches, fascinated in an odd sort of way, as he rolls a few feet before splaying across the grass of the Sorcerer Supreme's front yard, his sword impaling the ground not far from him.

Then Thor arrives with an echoing clap of thunder, cape billowing as he causes the last two fighting Aesir to jump away from each other. "Brother!" He calls, sharp and joyful, right before everything abruptly goes to shit.

...

"You will call for me if anything happens." Loki commands more than asks as he leads the way to where Strange is waiting for them and Hela resists the urge to roll her eyes.

"Yes, fadir." She and Fen answer at the same time, her brother sending her a quick flash of teeth in a grin. She gives him a more tame one in return, taking his hand in hers as Loki and Strange begin to weave the spell that will open a portal to the pathways between worlds. "We will be fine." She reassures her father and Loki pauses in his work to look her over for a long moment. Eventually he nods and turns back to Stephen, hands graceful and confident as the portal begins to materialize in the archway that the Doctor had chosen. It flashes, a swirling mixture of blue and green as their individual magic twines together to become one surge of power that connects them to Yggdrasil's branches.

Strange lets out a whistle, poking his head through to get a better look at the inner roots of the Nine Realms before Loki pulls him back by his shirt. The sorcerer frowns at him but Loki merely narrows his eyes in warning, causing Strange to raise an eyebrow in return. Watching them with something akin to fascination, Hela notes the small smile dancing across her father's lips as he crosses his arms over his chest. Bruce and Sleipnir arrive in the middle of their silent argument, her eldest brother stepping forward to hug them both as Bruce gives them an awkward wave from further back.

"Take care of father." Hela tells Sleipnir, tightening her arms before she finally releases him and he presses a kiss to the top of her head.

"I will if you do the same for Fen." He replies and Fenrir scowls at him, letting himself be pulled into a hug, even if he does duck away when Sleipnir tries to kiss him goodbye as well. Her eldest brother laughs, genuine and rich with mirth as he releases them. From behind him, Strange finally huffs, turning to them as he straightens his face from the pout it had been in mere seconds ago.

"Just close your eyes and tap your heels together three times. And think to yourself, there's no place like home when you want to come back." He tells them and Fen nods. Hela repeats the instructions back to herself, storing them away in her memory before she pulls her brother toward the portal.

"Don't do anything too crazy while we're gone." She tells them, not waiting for a reply as she and her brother disappear into the secret paths between the worlds. Loki stares after them, muscles tense for a moment, before Sleipnir lays an arm around his shoulders.

"They'll be fine, modir." He assures, watching as Strange closes the portal with a few muttered words. Every now and then, the mortal sorcerer will chuckle to himself, shoulders shaking in mirth. He doesn't understand the joke and from the baffled glances that his father is shooting his friend, he has no idea what to make of the man's laughter either. A glance toward Banner reveals the scientist shooting Strange disapproving looks, practically scowling at the other Midgardian, who collapses into a fit of giggles, using the archway of the newly closed portal to hold himself up.

"You're a terrible person." Bruce tells him as Strange wipes the tears from his eyes, chest heaving with a few errant laughs every few seconds as he breathes deeply.

"You can't say it wasn't funny!" He protests and Loki seems to get fed up with not knowing, because he grabs Stephen's arm and pulls him to face him.

"What are you blathering about now?" He huffs and Strange gulps, eye going wide as his laughter dies away completely.

"Uh..." He looks over at Bruce and the scientist smiles at him.

"He gave your children a movie reference as a means to get home for the sake of a joke." Banner tells the god and Loki's eyes widen before narrowing into slits as he pulls Stephen even closer.

"You what?" He growls and Strange seems to shrink in on himself under the prince's glare, turning his head in obvious relief when the door flies open to reveal a haggard looking Sara. She stands there for a moment, panting with her hands on her knees as gives them all an urgent look.

"There are a bunch of Vikings outside that are looking for Loki and his kids." She manages to get out, slumping against the doorjamb and Loki releases her boss, face going pale.

"How many?" He demands and she glares at him, more because she's still catching her breath than anything else.

"An angry chick and three less angry looking dudes." Sara says once she's regained control of her voice and Loki's jaw tightens before he turns to his son.

"You'll have to forgive me once this is over." He tells him and Sleipnir opens his mouth to reply before crumpling into unconsciousness. Loki catches him quickly, tucking him close to his side as he turns to Bruce. The scientist holds up his hands in surrender, taking a step back and Loki huffs out a laugh. "I would appreciate it if you would stay with him."

"Stay with him where?" Bruce asks, taking the hand that the god offers him. He gets his answer when they arrive in the penthouse of Stark Tower, in the midsts of what appears to be an argument between the Captain, Natasha, Stark, and his brother, judging by the tense atmosphere enveloping the room. Bruce resists the urge to wince when Nat's eyes immediately find his, more hazel than Loki's green but achingly familiar. She then looks to Loki, who teleports the few feet to the couch and lays his son down, barely pausing as the assassin levels a gun at him. Instead he turns to Tony with a short bow.

"See that they are kept safe, Stark." He orders before vanishing in a flash of green light. He arrives back at the mansion within seconds, already shooting an urgent message Amora's way as Sara shows Strange where the Asgardians are. Loki knows who it is before he sees them, had known as soon as the secretary had said  _vikings_ , and he curses his luck as he and Stephen come to stand before Sif and the Warriors Three. They're on the front yard, battle ready, with Sif standing in the front, sword and shield up.

"My lawn!" Stephen cries, looking down at the scorched grass and Loki shoots him an exasperated look.

"Worry about it later, darling." The god tells him before vanishing abruptly. Strange looks at the Asgardians for a long moment, then over to where Loki had been, then back at them.

"Sorry, visiting hours are over." He informs them, a grin flashing across his face and Sif narrows her eyes at him.

"We are here to retrieve the Liesmith." She says, chin tilting up as she tries to stare him down and Stephen holds back a sharp laugh.

"Yeah... No. Get the fuck off my lawn." He flicks a series of symbols through the air and she goes tumbling back, flipping head over heels until she smacks into the gravel with sharp crunch. Loki reappears, throwing a dagger with enough accuracy to pin the blonde one to a nearby tree, the blade only cutting through fabric. Strange raises an eyebrow at him, ducking as the asian looking one -neat- swings a mace at his head.

"It would be counterproductive to my plans for me to kill them." The god explains and Strange nods, stepping around another blow from the mace in the Aesir's very capable hands. "For now, we incapacitate them."

Strange uses his forearm to parry the next blow, pressing his arm up against the other man's as he steps close. Bringing his other hand up, he barks out a spell and gives a satisfied hum when the man's eyes widen before he's sent rocketing back. He looks over in time to see the woman from before rise with a rage filled cry, launching herself at Loki, who spins the chubby viking toward him with ease. Tubby comes at him, sword at the ready and Strange curses, hopping back with a few quick steps. Bringing his hands up, he sends a burst of energy toward the man just as a streak of red and gold shoots across the sky above him. Sparing a quick glance up, he lets out a curse, stomping a foot down as he brings the other around to kick the Asgardian in his side. He knows it won't phase the man, durable as he is, but he packs enough Power into the kick that it sends the warrior stumbling to the side.

"Shoot him already!" He shouts at the suit hovering above, spinning on his heel so that he can find Loki. The god is fighting well, daggers in hand as he practically dances around the female warrior with grace born of years of practice. Stephen would almost call the way he moves feminine if he had no self-preservation instincts whatsoever. But he does, so he doesn't. Loki can obviously handle himself, so he turns back to the others and immobilizes all of them with a quick spell. Iron Man gives him a nod, just as a big blonde man with a red cape lands, forcing Loki and the Warrior Princess to jump away from each other. Strange curses, preparing a spell to get rid of him but it dies on his lips as the woman raises a glowing gun and fires it straight at Loki's chest, Thor's exuberant call for his brother echoing through the air as the Trickster God crumples to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the segments of this chapter take place around the same time, in case that confused anyone. I'm not sure if I like it and I'll probably refrain from pacing things like this in the future, but for now it was necessary. Pietro, Hela, and Fenrir will be in the next chapter as Loki's children encounter Kali.
> 
> I warned you about the cliffhangers.


	13. Goddesses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fen visits his sister's kingdom, Kali gives Loki's kids a history lesson, Sif may have miscalculated, and Amora will fuck your shit up.

"This is your kingdom?" Fenrir asks in wonder once he and Hela arrive in Helheim, looking up at the scraggly mountains rising from the grey plateau in front of them. Everything is grey, but not in the way that's off-putting. Neither is it like the monochrome colors that he sees while in his wolf form, but the refreshing silver of pre-dawn. It's the death of the night, but not quite the birth of the day and he finds it... freeing, in an odd sort of way. "It is-"

"Depressing." Hela interjects from her spot at him side and he shakes his head resolutely.

"I was going to say beautiful," He reassures, spinning on his heel to get a better view even as they continue walking. "I can't really say I expected anything less from you, though."

"Well, you certainly inherited father's tendency to flatter." She chuckles sticking a foot into his path. He stumbles, a flash of light sparking along his skin as he transforms midair, twisting so that he lands on his feet. "You're certain that you're not part cat?"

Fen huffs up at her, tossing his head back in his best imitation of an eyeroll.  _'And you've inherited his tendency toward mischief.'_  He quips back mentally, nudging her upper arm with his massive head. She chuckles, placing a palm flat between his ears to push his head down and away from her. He lets her, huffing as he jogs a few feet back to pick up his sword. It's sheathed but the feel of it in his mouth makes a whine want to crawl up from his chest. Shaking off the feeling, he trots back to his sister and nudges her side.

They continue on in silence for a while. He can tell that Hela's giving him as much peace and quiet as she can while he studies her kingdom. She wants him comfortable and he can't say he doesn't appreciate the gesture. While he had always been the more brash of his father's children, Hela had taken after Sleipnir in her knack for empathy toward others. It had annoyed him beyond belief when they were younger, having someone that seemed to be able to read his mind whether he wanted her to or not, but now? Now he's glad for her thoughtfulness. After spending so long by himself, in pain both physically and emotionally, he had thought that he'd want the constant reminder that he wasn't alone, but it's exactly the opposite. Too much sound makes him jumpy and irritable. Too much physical contact makes him want to curl up with his snout pressed into his tail, growling until he's left alone.

Hela understands that even without him having to say anything. She understands that he's taking a while to adjust to his newfound freedom and she doesn't coddle him for it. If anything, she pushes him away. Never in a bad way of course, just a nudge familial nudge toward independence, like a bird testing if it's young are ready to fly yet. He lets out a snort at that, giving Hela a toothy grin when she looks his way.  _'Just thinking.'_

"That's not a dangerous habit at all." She replies and he hops up and licks her face in retaliation, letting out a bark of amusement when her face wrinkles in disgust. When they finally arrive at her palace, Hela is once again perfectly composed, hair and clothes neat as she leads him through the halls. They go straight to a large chamber with a vaulted ceiling, a pedestal standing proud in its center with a gem encrusted basin on top. Padding around it, he sniffs the water curiously and gets an overwhelming smell of fresh dew, a hint of his sister's natural scent curling through his nose like a fresh breeze. It's smells... silvery, for lack of better word and he knows that he'd never be able to describe it to anyone, but he strongly suspects that what he's smelling is her magic.

Turning his head to ask, he spots his sister standing before an archway embedded into the stone of the wall and jogs up to her, transforming mid-step as he goes. He reaches up, just barely able to reach the apex of the arch if he strains and she jabs him in the side as she removes a piece of chalk from a hole in the wall left by a missing stone. With practiced movements, she draws a collection of runes into the archway, fragments of a spell falling from her lips in a whisper as she works and Fen does his best to stay out of her way, content to watch her work.

Once she's done, the runes begin to glow, first a dull white before they brighten to silver and then gold. The stone within the archway shimmers, replaced by the same grey water that's within the basin and he reaches out a hand to touch it, brow furrowing when his fingers are met with the tingling of electricity instead of liquid. Grabbing his other hand, Hela pulls him toward the portal, hold tightening when he tries to dig his heels in. "Stop being a scared-y cat." She tells him and he's so shocked by her words that her next tugs sends him stumbling right through the gateway.

She follows him through, laughing as she goes and he huffs as he pulls himself up from the floor. They're in another palace by the looks of it, this one bright and stunning in a kaleidoscope of vibrant colors. Everything is inlaid in gold, but unlike Asgard it's just enough to accent the bright reds, teals, oranges that pervade the place instead of being the dominant color. Looking around with wide eyes, he notes the strong smell in the air, spicy and warm in a way that makes his nose twitch. He has no doubt that if he was in wolf form it would drive him up a wall, but for now it's pleasant enough to not be off-putting.

"Welcome." A voice greets from further in the room and Hela dips her head as an azure-skinned woman comes into view. There's a bolt of white and gold fabric wrapped around her waist, hanging loosely to her ankles, which are sporting a number of golden rings. There are more around her wrists and upper-arms, jangling as she walks, and a necklace of skulls hangs around her neck. That and her hair are the only things keeping her breasts from view, something that he can't help but notice as heat climbs up his face. He drops his head in an awkward jerk, ignoring the look Hela shoots him as the woman comes to a stop before him.

"It is good to see you again, Your Majesty." Hela says as she raises her head and Fen blinks. This is Kali? He doesn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't  _this_. He's used to the gods of the Nine, regal and modest in their own way, not a half-nude woman decked in gold and skulls. As if reading his thoughts, Kali's attention turns to him, a smile curving her black lips.

"I am just as savage as I look, godling." She tells him, voice deep and rich and Fen's blush climbs nearly to his hairline. She laughs at him, laying a hand on his cheek. "Oh, you are precious. Nothing like your father."

Fen chokes on his next breath. "My father?"

"Oh yes, he was just as fun to tease, don't get me wrong, Balaka, but he was also a devious little snake." She pats his cheek and straightens, turning to his sister before he can stutter out a reply. "I take it this isn't a social visit."

Hela shakes her head, professional in a way that her brother isn't and Kali smiles. There is definitely a bit of Loki in both of them, she muses, even if it is the polar opposite bits. "We are looking for a fallen ally, Your Majesty."

"Kali," The other goddess corrects and Hela blinks. "You may call me Kali or Kalika, whichever you prefer, but you are also a Queen and should present yourself as such. Giving me the title of 'Your Majesty' is a tradition of your people that is not only incorrect when applied to me but also lowers your standing before me."

"I understand." Hela replies and when the Hindu goddess raises an eyebrow, she adds, "Kali."

The other woman dips her head in acknowledgement. "Well met, Hela and," She glances as Fen.

"Fenrir, Your- Uh... Kali." He stutters and the goddess laughs, chest rising and falling in a way that makes her ornamentation of skulls clack.

"Well met, Fenrir." She tells him and he resolutely doesn't blush this time. When she turns to lead them deeper into her palace, Hela elbows him in the side with a stern look.

"Hey!" He complains, but she just shakes her head with a hiss.

"Do not be so hard on him." Kali admonishes, not even bothering to turn around. "Your father could barely pick his jaw up from the floor when we first met, the poor thing. He hadn't traveled much outside of the Nine Realms at that point and he found me exotic. Little did he know that people of his color are frightfully common here."

"But you're blue." Fen protests, dodging Hela's elbow this time. Then he realizes what Kali must mean and stops short, forcing the others to do the same. "You know about his Jotun form?"

"I am older than him by a very long time." Kali says instead of answering his question, motioning for them to continue on. "Unlike him, I had traveled to visit many of the other Pantheons before he was even born. As such, I have had the privilege of seeing Jotunheim at the peak of it's power, long before Odin reduced it to the wasteland that it is now." Her lips curl in disgust and when Fen looks, Hela is hanging off her every word with rapt attention. "The Frost Giants, as the Aesir so hatefully call them, were never monsters, not in the way the All-Father would have you all believe. They were extremely talented mages, elemental unlike the elves, and powerful because of it. Much like the Eld-Jotnar of Muspelheim, the Jotnar are the building blocks of your pantheon, something that Odin seems to have forgotten."

"What do you mean?" Hela interrupts, clearly confused and Kali's eyes widen in surprised horror as she seems to realize that they have no idea what she's talking about. Then she frowns, all four of her arms rising into the air in a show of anger, and her bangles ring a little louder with the force of her movements.

"Of course he wouldn't tell any of you the history of the giants." She complains, voice laced with disgust. "I doubt your father even knows, the fool. In the beginning of Nine Realms, the fires of Muspelheim and the icy mists of Nifleheim came together in the Great Void to create a giant named Ymir, who grew strong from the milk of the cow, Audhumla, if I remember the tales correctly. The cow in turn nourished itself on the salt of a nearby rock, eventually freeing the first of the Aesir gods, Buri. Buri produced a son named Borr, who took the giantess Bestla as a wife. Bestla was a direct descendent of the first giant Ymir, a child of both the Eld-Jotnar and the Jotnar, and together they had a son named Odin."

"Odin's part Jotun?" Fen asks incredulously and Kali nods.

"All of the Nine are in some way descended from the Jotnar, since Ymir was the first of all things. The fact that they are now disregarded as beasts is something that I find not only foolish, but disgusting as well. Especially given that Odin, along with his two brothers, killed Ymir for no other reason than to say they could. The Giant's blood washed over Niflehim, where your kingdom of Helheim resides if I'm not mistaken, covering it in ice and grey mists. The Jotnar died off with it, except for two giants who fled to what is now called Jotunheim and began to rebuild their race. Over time, the Jotnar flourished again, becoming scholars and mages that aided the Nine Realms in it's growth.

"Then Odin stole the Casket of Ancient Winters, along with the fiery Heart of Muspelheim, condemning both to a slow death. The two realms both dissolved into civil war, until finally Laufey and Surtr, respectively, stood as the kings of their Realms." She pauses outside a plain looking door and holds out a hand. "The key."

Hela startles before digging into the pocket of her jeans and pulling out a small silver key. She hands it over and Kali studies it for a moment before using it to unlock the door. It clicks open easily, despite the fact that there's no way it should fit, but Fenrir pins it on magic, too focused on the room opening before them to worry about the how and why of a mystic door. Kali leads them in and sweeps an arm toward the lone occupant of the room. There's a boy sleeping on the bed, silver and black hair sticking out in every direction, but he wakes when they enter the room, blue eyes blinking open.

"Who are you?" He asks with a heavy accent, instantly alert as he sits up and takes them in. "Where am I?"

"The afterlife." Kali informs him, holding out a hand to him. He accepts it, eyes widening as he takes her in and her smile widens. "Not many worship me as you and your sister still do."

"Kali," He breaths, clearly lost as to what to do when meeting a deity and the goddess laughs, full and delightful.

"The Romani are such delightful people." She says to no one in particular as she turns him toward her two guests. "This is Hela and Fenrir. They're here to take you home to your sister, if I'm not mistaken."

"Yes." Hela agrees, dipping her head to him in greeting and Pietro rubs his hands over his face, not quite through processing the fact that he's  _not dead_  anymore. The Norse Goddess turns to Kali. "How did you know?"

"Heimdall is not the only one that can see the other worlds." She says cryptically and Fenrir crosses his arms. "Do not frown at me so, Balaka. There are many secrets that I keep and few that I will tell. I did teach your father a few things after all." Which was true. As a Goddess of Change herself, the God of Chaos could not have asked for a better teacher, even if his own arrogance had earned him a few harsh lessons at her hands. She does not hate the god, far from it, but she can't say that she doesn't enjoy seeing him in peril due to his own foolishness, which often led to her checking up on the god out of curiosity's sake. As a result, she's more informed on the situation in Midgard that anyone would probably expect, including a deal between a god and a certain archer.

She had had a good laugh at that, tears of mirth springing to her eyes at the thought that Loki had indebted himself to a mortal out of sheer stupidity through his actions. Honestly, he never learned. Chuckling to herself, she shakes off her thoughts and notices that the young ones are all staring at her with various expressions of confusion. "I'm just recalling some fond memories." She assures them and Hela nods.

"Thank you for all of your help, Kali." She tells the other goddess with a smile. "Would you lead us back to the gateway, so that we may return to our own realms?"

Kali hums, a smile tugging at her lips. "Nonsense. I believe I'll be accompanying you all to Midgard. It's been far too long since I've visited."

...

Loki barely hits the ground before a burst of blue magic picks Sif up and flings her across the yard, gun flying from her hand to land a few feet away. It takes a few moments for the world to stop spinning around her, air returning to her chest in a painful gasp, but once she gets her bearings, she's up, sword clutched in her hand as she turns her attention on the human sorcerer. "You will regret doing that, mortal." She tells him and his lips quirk, even if his eyes remain a steely blue.

"I tend to not regret things. It makes life unnecessarily difficult." He retorts, hands crackling with blue energy as Sif shoots a quick glance toward the gun. She lunges toward it and scoops it up, firing off another pulse of crippling green energy. The sorcerer dodges to the side with a smirk that quickly fades as the blast changes course to follow him. It hits him in the side, sending him stumbling back but otherwise he shrugs it off. Sif stares at him, a dumbfounded expression gracing her face and the infuriating man laughs at her.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that that gun is set to Aesir Power signatures." He says, Power dancing across his arms. "Sucks for you, honey, because we're on Earth." He dodges another blast. "Oh touchy! Do you prefer Midgard?"

"I would prefer to wipe you from existence." The goddess snarls, tossing the gun aside and drawing her sword. The sorcerer only smirks, whispering a spell as a naginata appears in his hands. Now it's Sif's turn to smirk, knowing full well that she can win any close quarters combat that the man sees fit to challenge her with. She hadn't earned her place as a warrior among the Aesir for her looks, after all. Moving into a proper stance, she makes to attack, only for a shriek to cut off. She barely has time to process the oddly familiar sound before Amora appears from seemingly nowhere with a vicious punch to the stomach that sends her doubling over, hands clutching at her gut as she struggles to draw in breath.

The blonde goddess barely pauses in her attack, following up her first hit with a kick that Sif avoids by throwing herself to the ground and rolling out of reach. She comes up with her sword at the ready, but Amora stops herself before she runs into it, eyes glowing poison green as the weapon is ripped from Sif's hand.

"What have you done, you bitch?" Amora snarls and Sif's eyes widen in alarm, her confidence wavering briefly before she reminds herself that she is better than the sorceress before her.

"I took his magic." She says simply and Strange looks confused.

"That wouldn't knock him out." He points out, but Amora shakes her head, practically trembling with rage.

"That was magically exhaustion. Unlike you, Loki was born with magic." She corrects him. "It's essentially his soul and the fact that Odin gave Sif the means to take it from him just shows how much of a monster he truly is."

"You will not talk about your king that way." Sif interrupts and Amora snorts, waving a hand dismissively in the other goddesses direction. The gesture sends Sif rolling harshly across the ground again, but this time she's prepared, digging her sword into the earth to stop her progress so that she halts within reach of the Power Gun. She makes to grab it but a blast of white energy explodes into the grass inches from her hand and she looks up to find the Man of Iron hovering near her.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Says the cold, mechanical voice and Sif sneers, opening her mouth to reply but the mortal sorcerer takes the opportunity of her distraction to send another magical attack her way. It sends her flying and she keeps a firm hold on her sword until she smack into the ground with hiss of frustration. The Man of Iron turns to the mortal with his hands raised in a gesture of disbelief. "Seriously?"

Sif ignores them as they begin bickering, raising herself onto one knee as she looks around the yard. Thor catches her eye, giving her a solemn shake of his head and she studies him for a long moment before her mouth tightens into a thin line of displeasure.

"Your fight is over, Sif." He tells her, not unkindly, and she stiffens, grip tightening around her sword until she breathes out a sigh, muscles going lax. She watches as Strange and Amora move to kneel beside Loki, giving the Power Gun a wide berth.

"You would do well to remember where your loyalties lie, my prince." She tells the Thunderer, not looking away as the mortal gently flips the Trickster onto his back, revealing the sizzling hole on the front of his shirt. There is no wound, however, and she can tell by the man's furrowed brow that he is confused. "Odin All-Father has expressed his concern of Loki's freedom, unearned and treasonous as it is."

"My loyalty is to the Nine Realms, Sif." Thor corrects, taking a step forward as he holds a hand out to her. Glancing at the Man of Iron, she reaches up and takes it, letting her friend draw her to her feet. The metal man doesn't spare her any of his attention, gaze focused on the Power Gun lying in the grass a few feet away.

"I do not doubt you, Thor." She sheathes her sword, but makes no move toward the Gun. It has fulfilled it's purpose for now and she won't need it again until she returns to Asgard with Loki in chains. "I cannot say that I have the same opinion of the Liesmith."

Amora mumbles something particularly vulgar at that, but Thor ignores her, slipping his hammer back onto his belt with a frown. "Loki has done no wrong since his return to Midgard."

"That is where you are wrong." She shoots Loki a contemptuous look and receives a glare from the mortal sorcerer in return. Such a foolish being. "Heimdall reports that he attacked a group of mortals, along with the aid of a masked devil."

"Then Heimdall," Amora spits the name as she presses two glowing palms to Loki's chest, posture stiff with concentration. "Is wrong. Loki has been with one of us the entire time he's been here."

"The Gatekeeper does not lie, mortal." Sif sniffs and the sorcereress bristles, magic coilding up her arms and into the air around her in anger. She opens her mouth, undoubtedly to say something nasty in return, but Iron Man cuts her off.

"Thor," He calls, sparing the god a quick glance. "Not sure if it's an As`thing or what, but your brother's turning blue."

Thor's eyes widen almost comically as he whirls around to face his brother, Strange jumping back with a yelp as the grass beneath the fallen god crackles and whitens with frost. Amora stays at her friend's side, ignoring the chill, and Sif sneers, lip curling as she looks at the other goddess over her shoulder. She uses their distraction to grab the gun as she makes her way to Fandral. A few quick tugs free the prince's daggers from the wood of the tree and the blonde tumbles to the ground with a curse.

"He's getting better at that." He remarks, lips curled into a somewhat sheepish smile and Sif rolls her eyes.

"He has always been good at tricking others in battle." She huffs, using the gun to send small jolts of energy through Hogun and Volstagg. "Until he learns to fight with sword or axe-"

"-or mace." Fandral adds, smirking at Hogun. The other man raises an eyebrow at him once he's back on his own two feet, arms crossed over his chest and the blonde Aesir gives him a look that's very nearly a pout.

Sif lets out an annoyed huff of air. "As I was saying; if the prince cannot fight like a warrior, then he has no claim to the title of one."

"That's harsh." A new voice speaks up and they all turn to see the Man of Iron, faceplate up, as the mortal inside shoots them a decidedly cocky look. "I mean, he did just hand your asses to you before you shot him with that mystical plasma pistol. Which, by the way, can I see that for a moment?" Not waiting for a reply, he snatches it from the goddesses grasp, looks it over with a hum, turns and fires off a shot at Loki's unconscious form, careful not to hit Amora in the process.

Strange turns to gape at him, shock and anger mixed across his face in a near comical expression. "Seriously?!"

Tony ignores him, sparing a glance at the no-longer-glowing gun in his hand. He looks over at the god on the ground with narrowed eyes, clearly expecting something more than the weak groan that Loki emits as he rolls onto his side, skin fading back to it's normal paleness. "Well, that could have been a lot more dramatic." He sighs, disappointment coloring his tone and green eyes glare at him from across the yard.

"Forgive me for not sparing the effort to stroke your ego." Loki drawls, turning his annoyance on his brother, who stops trying to help him up after a few moments of them silently glaring at each other. Once he finds his own two feet with Amora's, he turns to the Aesir, Sif in particular, with a calm expression. However, when he speaks there is a distinct edge of anger to his tone. "Tell the All-Father that if he wishes to see me back in Asgard he will have to retrieve me himself."

Sif opens her mouth to reply but Thor cuts her off. "Would it not be better to discuss why they are here, brother?" He asks and Loki nearly gapes at him, expression incredulous as Sif lets out a particularly rude noise.

"You could always pick up Bruce and uh..."

"Sleipnir." Amora supplies and Tony shrugs.

"Slipper, whatever. We'll handle Xena and the Braveheart extras." The billionaire continues and Loki studies him for a long time before nodding. A surge of green-gold energy envelopes them all courtesy of Loki and Amora, blue mixing in once Strange adds his own Power to the teleportation spell and they appear in Tony's Tower with a nauseating cosmic kick to the stomach. They're greeted by a tense atmosphere once they land, Sleipnir shooting an exasperated look his father's way as Bruce and Natasha resolutely ignore each other. Steve looks about ready to knock their heads together and Tony snorts. Good luck with that.

"Oh good, you're back." The soldier sighs, then draws up short at he notices the extra company. "Friends of yours?" He asks to no one in particular and Thor nods even as his brother shoots a mildly disgusted look the Asgardians' way.

"Hardly." He says, not so subtly leaning on Strange as Amora pulls Sleipnir to his feet. "You'll be returning to the Manor now."

"Not without you, Mod-" His son cuts himself off, looking at Sif and the others with a guarded expression. "Father."

Sif eyes him, opening her mouth to retort but Strange shoots a glare her way. "Shut it, Xena."

"You dare!" She hisses back, ignoring Fandral's chuckle from behind her as she rounds on the mortal.

"Try me, honey. I'll do way more than dare." The sorcerer shoots back and Tony lets out a groan as the last of his armor peels away.

"We get it; you're both pretty. Now shut up." He cuts in and they both reward him with venomous looks. He rolls his eyes. "I believe we have important things to discuss." Which they do, but it doesn't prevent the inventor from internally flinching because if he's the one getting everyone back on track then shit's really in the gutter. The startled look that his teammates shoot his way confirm his thoughts and he lets out another groan. Great.

Loki surprises them all by humming from his position by the elevator. "I dare say you do." He agrees with a quick smile, giving Strange a pointed look. The sorcerer leaves his side to grab ahold of Bruce with a nod and they all vanish with a flash of light, leaving a stunned group of Avengers and Asgardians in their wake.

"Seriously?" Tony shouts after them and Steve sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohmygod, I apologize for the near month long wait in between chapters! This chapter just wouldn't be written, so I finally scrapped it and rewrote the entire thing. There's probably like two of the original sentences in here, but I finished it. (Even if I don't like the last bit all that much, ugh) The next couple of chapters will be more fun, especially since we're starting the next arch as of Pietro's return. Also, thanks to TG, you'll be getting a specially treat soon!
> 
> But anyway, what did you guys think of Kali? She's being portrayed by Tina Desai, who plays Kala Dandekar in Sense8. Apparently that's a good show, since everyone on Tumblr is going insane over it. By the way, she calls Fen Balaka, which roughly translates to 'youngling' in English.


	14. Measures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The senior Avengers have a talk, Strange is enabling and may possibly get vaporised by a certain Enchantress, and Loki has the worst ideas ever.

Tony lets out a yawn, effectively hiding his sigh of frustration behind the sound, and leans back in his chair. He can't think of any better way to broadcast how much he doesn't want to be where he is without getting up and walking out of the room, but Natasha ignores him. Thor looks no better from his spot beside him, shooting occasional yearning looks toward his friends as Steve and Natasha take turns arguing over his brother's motives. Natasha is firmly set on sending Loki back, unconscious if she must, but Tony can tell that Steve is on the fence. The American Boyscout keeps sending Thor cryptic little glances, which, what the hell is that about anyway? On one occasion - _about an hour ago_ , Tony wants to add for the record- Thor had dipped his head in acknowledgement, but otherwise the god seems more inclined to sit and pout in a puddle of his own angst.

"Do you want to add something to the debriefing, Tony?" Natasha asks, snapping Tony out of his light doze and the inventor leans back further in his chair so that he can bring his legs down from their position on the table.

"Oh no, you seem to have everything covered. I'll just continue sitting here. Doing nothing." He tells her and she narrows her eyes at him before turning to Sif and starting back up their plan to capture a certain Trickster God. In all reality, Tony's bored. Not just the foot-tapping restlessness of someone that's been sitting in a chair for an hour and a half, but the soul crushing, hand twitching need to give his brain something to do. Before, only board meetings for Stark Industries had ever inspired this kind of mind-numbing lack of entertainment, but Natasha has effectively stripped any kind of fun from the debriefing they're having. Meaning to say, she'd told Tony to keep quiet unless he had anything relevant to add and Tony had gone along with it because Nat terrifies him on the best of days.

"I do not think that Loki means this Realm any harm." Thor  _finally_  speaks up, arms crossed atop the table and Steve gives him a sad little look.

"No offence, Thor, but he is your brother." The captain tells him and Tony snorts.

"That's a little hypocritical, don't you think?" He shoots back, because he's tired of this. "If this was Bucky, you wouldn't be siding with Nat longer than it would take to say 'sad little Bronx boy', but because it's  _his_  brother, you're pulling the high and mighty card? We get it, he's a villain and a fugitive, he killed people and he's a general dick when you really think about it, but last time I checked so is everyone else in this room. Well, minus the villain part. I'm pretty sure I'm a fugitive in some country somewhere and from what I've learned about Boy Thunder, he wasn't exactly the poster boy for peace before the All-Daddy sent him on a vacation to Mexico."

"It was a quest, Man of Iron." Thor cuts in and Tony resists the urge to smack his head into the table.

"Semantics, Big Guy, I'm trying to help you here."

"Ah," Thor raises one of his arms from the table in a small wave. "Carry on."

"Thank you." The inventor says as he stands, clapping his hands together once. Now that he's actually moving, he feels much better. "What the hell do they make these chairs out of? A toxic mixture of chronic depression and the tears of high-schoolers?"

"Stark." Steve sighs and Tony turns to him with a hum. "You were saying?"

"He was saying that we should let Loki do whatever he wants." Natasha cuts in and Tony groans.

"No. That's not what I'm saying at all." He corrects, but Nat looks skeptical, just like her new best friend beside her. "According to Sid."

"Sif," The female warrior cuts in and Tony winks.

"Whatever. You're saying that Loki's up to no good and he needs to be returned to a cell as soon as possible." Sif nods, even if her expression does turn wary at his words. "Now Thor,  _our teammate_ , might I add, has reported that Loki's warning of an impending war is a very real possibility, yet all of you are just going to sit around and argue over whether or not we should trust him."

"So you _are_  saying that we should just let the Liesmith go free for his crimes?" Sif asks incredulously and Tony thinks that he's a getting too old to have to deal with this shit anymore.

"Is thick headedness an Asgardia character study or something? Do you take lessons?" He shoots back and her lips thin in displeasure. "What I'm saying is that whether you want to believe it or not, a maniac from across the galaxy is going to try to obliterate our species and we can either help defend the planet _like we're supposed to_ or we can waste our time trying to hunt down the one guy that can probably help us."

"And what if his plan is to gather all of our heroes and get them out of the way as a favor to the Mad Titan?" The chubby one, Volstagg, cuts in for the first time. "What would you do then?"

I don't think that's his style." Tony replies, but he doesn't want to dismiss the idea quite yet. "I'm not saying trust him with your first born or anything, but we can certainly keep a better eye on him if we pretend to work with him."

"I can keep a better eye on him from inside a cell." Sif points out and Tony does sigh this time, because she just doesn't get it, does she?

"We've both tried that already. We had him in a Hulk-proof cage and he got out. You had him locked up in Asgard and he got out."

"With aid." Fandral adds and Thor shifts uncomfortably, but Tony spies Natasha lean forward a little out of his periphery. When he turns his head to look at her, she has a calculating look on her face, brows not quite furrowed as she taps her steepled fingers against her lips. Steve glances from her to Tony, a frown marring his face, but he looks to be considering it too.

"There's no way to know whether or not he would have eventually escaped on his own." Nat finally says, words slow and careful, like she knows that she's giving ground but doesn't want it to be obvious that she's taking Tony's point as something to seriously consider.

Tony very resolutely doesn't do a fist pump. That would be childish. He does flash the female assassin a mega-watt playboy smile though.

She just frowns at him.

"Before we decide on whether or not to play along with Loki's plan, we need to take a vote." Steve adds and Tony should have known that he'd find some way to make this situation a democracy. "That includes the entirety of the Avengers, Tony, not just the people in this room."

"But-"

"Wanda and Vision get a vote along with everyone else." Steve cuts him off and Tony sighs internally. "Nat and I will inform them of the situation and then you and Thor can present your case."

"This isn't a trial, Steve." The inventor feels the need to add and the Captain gives him a long suffering look.

"No," He concedes. "But this isn't something we can treat lightly. We can't just jump into something this big without having a plan of our own."

"I have a plan already." Tony tells him and Steve doesn't bother trying to hide his surprise, the ass. Even Natasha looks skeptical and Tony's hurt, he really is. "We do what Loki wants us to and gather heroes. It can't hurt to have more allies and if Loki is leading us on a giant goose chase for shits and giggles, we kick his ass back to Asgard."

"And if he's telling the truth?" Natasha asks, even if she does add a healthy dubiousness to her words.

"We try not to die?"

...

Despite what people may think, Stephen has common sense. Or more to say, he has a healthy appreciation and awareness of things that can potentially prove fatal to him and the people in his care. He was a neurosurgeon, for God's sake! He knows when something's a bad idea, and this? This is a Bad Idea. He can feel it in his bones. Or more accurately, just the thought of what Loki wants him to do is making his magic do an Irish jig through his bloodstream like it's happy hour in a Chili's on St. Patrick's day.

Er... You get the point.

So Loki is officially the patron god of Things One Just Must Not Do Ever, but that's okay, Strange has done some pretty stupid shit in his life too. And it's not like Loki's possible (probable) disastrous plan is going to hurt anyone but himself. He just doesn't like it, is all. Still, "You want me to bind your magic to your body?"

Loki nods, even if he does roll his eyes. This may have been the third time Strange has asked that question. "My answer will not change if you continue to ask." The god points out and Stephen sighs.

"I know, I just..." Stephen begins, then let's himself trail off. He doesn't like this. It goes against everything he's ever learned about magic. Power is free and it doesn't belong to him and even if Loki was born with his, his magic belongs to Yggdrasil just as much as it belongs to the Trickster himself. "This isn't something that I can undo once it's done."

Loki stands from his chair and moves around the library table to stand before him. He doesn't touch him, even if his hand does come up to cup the shape of his face. There's an inch of space in between them and it crackles with untamed energy, a mix of both of them that conflicts and merges in a way that Stephen can't help but feel is right. They'd be amazing together, he knows, but that same bit of common sense that's causing him to hesitate with Loki's request is also telling him that Loki's not the one for him.

They wouldn't work romantically, not without tearing each other up in the process, but that's neither here nor there. What he needs to focus on right now is Loki, not Loki and Stephen. The god must see it on his face because he lets his hand fall back to his side as his features soften. "I would not ask this of you if I didn't think you could do it." The prince says and Stephen laughs. It sounds hollow, not as full and happy as his other Loki induced laughs are and he hides a wince.

"You wouldn't ask me if you knew Amora wouldn't flay you alive for being a paranoid idiot." He shoots back and the god smiles. They both know why Stephen is Loki's choice in this matter instead of the Enchantress and it has nothing to do with whether or not she's capable. Amora's more than capable of doing what the Trickster God asks, she'd just sooner cut off her own arm than help Loki bind his magic to his flesh. It's taboo here on Earth and he's willing to bet his Eye that it's even more so on Asgard, steeped in Norse Power dynamics at it is.

It isn't just about that though, it's about Loki taking away any hope he has of his soul reuniting to Yggdrasil. It's about Stephen helping another mage commit magical suicide in every way but the physical. Sure, Loki will never have to worry about getting his magic stolen, but the cost is something that Stephen's not sure he's willing to let Loki pay. "There has to be an alternative." He finally says and the god turns away.

For a moment, Strange thinks that Loki's given up on him completely and is leaving to do the job himself, but the trickster merely begins to pace, hands clamping behind his back as he thinks. "Something temporary, you mean?"

"Something other than you locking your Power inside your body 'till death do you part, yeah." Strange quips and Loki pauses, turning with a flourish as a slow grin spreads across his face. "I don't like that look."

"You'll like the reason behind it even less." Loki tells him and Stephen drops his head into his hands.

"Amora's going to kill us." The sorcerer groans and the prince chuckles.

"Possibly." He agrees, completely nonplussed as he motions for Strange to follow him out of the room, talking all the while. "We're going to need several low resonance magical artifacts. Something small and portable."

"Like a pendant?" Stephen offers, catching up easily, and Loki shoots him a droll look. The sorcerer merely grins down at him, lording their slight height difference over him.

"That might prove useful, but they'll need to be free of any Power signatures from other magic users."

"We could just make some."

"Make some what?" Amora calls from down the hall and Strange freezes up.

"Shit." He blurts out and the heel of Loki's shoe digs into his foot mercilessly. "Ow!"

"Cookies." Loki tells her, shooting a murderous look toward the other sorcerer before straightening his face when Amora raises a dubious eyebrow at him. "I have a feeling that Hela and Fen will be coming back with more company than we expected, seeing as Kali loves to laugh at my misfortune."

"Maybe you just make it easy for her." Amora says, a teasing smile gracing her face and Loki huffs. Stephen does his best to fade into the background, letting Loki take the lead on fooling his best friend. He has a strong feeling that if he opens his mouth, he'll ruin whatever lies the trickster is expertly spinning, so he keeps it shut and attempts to become one with the wall panelling. See? Common sense.

"If you keep it up, I'll start to think you like her more than me." Loki says and Amora laughs.

"What, blue skin and tendency toward red eyes when her temper flips?" The Enchantress returns. "I can't think of where I'd ever find that again."

"You're taking the news of my... heritage awfully light, Amora." The trickster says and something in his voice sucks the humor right out of the air. It doesn't faze the other Aesir though, as she merely lays a hand on Loki's shoulder as she comes to stand parallel to him.

"Not all of us were raised coddled within the teachings of Asgard." She reminds the god, a small smile quirking her lips. "Some of us fell from grace long before Thor decided to reanimate a centuries old war with the Jotnar." When Loki merely goes rigid, she squeezes his shoulder. "You are Loki, no more, no less. If you choose to let your blood separate who you are now from the Loki that I grew up with, so be it, but I know who you are, Aesir skin or not."

Loki doesn't seem to have anything to say to that and the Enchantress winks at him before turning to Stephen. "You would think that you'd know where the kitchen is, seeing as you own this mansion." She tells him as she passes and Strange gapes after her.

"Sara!" He yells and Loki breaks into helpless peals of laughter beside him. "Oh what, you know how to make cookies now?"

That only gets the god to laugh harder, shoulders trembling as he lays a hand against the hall wall. "Forgive me," He finally manages around a few dying chuckles. "I'm afraid the stress of the last two weeks are catching up."

"Well, I'm glad one of us can laugh at our impending doom." Strange mutters back and Loki straightens, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.

"If it'll ease your mood, I do know how to make them?"

"The cookies or the-" Stephen looks down both ends of the hall, before continuing in a hushed tone. "Talismans?"

"Both." The god hums and Strange resists the urge to throw his hands up in the air. "Luckily, I have some already made?"

"The talismans?"

"The cookies." Loki reiterates as he starts leading him down the hall again.

"Huh," Strange huffs. Then, "Wait. Where did a Norse god learn to make cookies?"

"I learned during my visit with Clint." Loki informs him as they arrive at Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. He waits patiently for the sorcerer to unlock and open the door before stepping in. The air around them immediately changes, growing thick with a near electric current of Power. The resonances are all different, buffeted through the air from their respective vessels until they mix like a carefully balanced piece of music and the god takes a moment to let it hum through his veins. He doesn't realize how much he's missed this feeling until he really lets the room's energy seep into his skin.

There's a beauty to any mages work space as long as it's treated with the respect that is due for its craft. His mother had taught him that long ago and he has no doubt that she'd be impressed by Stephen's Sanctum as much as he is. He doesn't plan on telling the sorcerer that though and he can't help but be relieved when Strange snaps him out of his revery with a disbelieving "An assassin taught you how to make cookies?" as he begins rooting around for the necessary materials.

"No, but his wife is a lovely woman." Loki tells him and Strange pauses, shooting him a look that Loki's not sure if he wants to interpret. If the sorcerer was any more obvious he'd be wiggling his eyebrows at him and Loki has to bite back a fond smile at the thought.

They work in silence for a few moments, gathering what they'll need until there's a veritable pile on the nearby table. Once they have everything, Loki begins inspecting each of the individual pieces. He doesn't think he'll find anything unsatisfactory with the items but it's a habit that's hard to break. Each of the crystals are flawless, empty and humming with the unique melody of age-old magical vessels. He can't help but wonder where and when Strange found the time to gather near perfect Power crystals, but he stores the thought away for later and retrieves a knife so that he can begin carving the necessary runes into the stones. It's tedious work, but with a spell this delicate -and potentially dangerous- he doesn't want to take any chances by speeding the process along with magic.

Stephen works beside him, separating a spool of suede twine into near four foot long segments. Loki leaves him to it besides the occasional glances to check his progress. Once the sorcerer has about eight lengths of string, he begins enchanting them, steeping the fabric with various spells of strength and durability. They'll need to be sturdy and resistant to wear and tear, seeing as they'll be used to carry something infinitely precious. Stephen's not sure if he approves of this course of action either, but it's leagues better than the god's original idea.

Once Loki is done carving the gems, he passes them along to the Sorcerer Supreme to be wrapped in twine, creating a snug cradle while leaving enough room for the pendant to be comfortably worn. At their length now they'll rest roughly below the bottom of the wearer's rib cage. All except one, which he instructs Strange to spell to be adaptable to shapeshifting. That particular pendent will lengthen as the wearer grows in size and he carves the runes for Fenrir's name into it just to be safe. Then he pauses to think for a moment and carves the others' names in runes as well; Fenrir, Hela, Sleipnir, Amora, Strange, Thor...

He frowns down at his brother's pendant for a long moment, feeling the tug of a vessel waiting to be filled with Power as it lays in his palm, before cupping it in his hands and murmuring a spell to protect it from extreme heat. The talismans need to be battle ready and it won't do for it to shatter as soon as the Thunderer calls down the lightning that he favors so much. It hums in his palm, high and joyful in a way that makes his lips twitch up into a smile. Setting it aside he inspects the remaining three crystals one last time, leaving them blank but ready in case he chooses to gift them in the future.

"Well, that was the easy part." He says once all eight of the pendants are laid out before them on the table. He runs a well practiced eye over them, wary of any imperfections and allows himself a small smile when he finds none. "I'll need your help for the next one especially."

Strange's lips quirk at that. "And to think I was slacking off this entire time." He quips, waving a hand toward the door. A ward flares to life within the wood and the acute sensation of being completely isolated from the rest of the world falls over the room. It's here that Stehen hesitates, a queasy feeling rising in his stomach because he knows what's coming next. Loki merely archs an eyebrow at him and Strange narrows his eyes in return. If he wants to take a moment to prepare himself for what he's about to do, then he's going to and Loki can just shove his impatience where the sun doesn't shine.

"You're going to want to lay down for this." He finally tells the god and Loki's lips curl up into a self-satisfied smirk, no doubt remembering the day they first met.

"And here I thought that was a one time thing." He says and chuckles when Strange pushes him in retaliation. The gesture doesn't budge the god at all and it only causes Loki to laugh more. There's a hint of nervousness to the sound, but it's barely there and masked quickly as Loki falls silent, his mirth dying in the air around them. He does lay down though, hands placed loosely at his sides. Strange can practically see him forcing himself to relax and he busies himself by grabbing the first of the eight pendants, allowing the god to fight his own war with himself.

Tossing the talisman up in the air above Loki's chest, he splays his fingers and holds it there with a whirl of Power, watching as it bobs in the open air one, twice, then settles. "Ekat morf hself dna dnib ot enots. Gnirb rewop dna htrib ytiruces. Tcetorp eht rehtorb."

The words fall from his lips like stones. It isn't a spell that's taught, not in any language that Strange knows at least, but a crude enchantment made from locution and intent. Despite it's conceiving, the incantation has the same amount of Power behind it as a spell that's been passed down for millennia and he has to force himself to keep going as Loki goes ashen, green flaring in his eyes as his magic crawls from his skin. It twines in the air, curious and snake-like, writhing in protest when Stephen directs it toward the pendant with his own nudge of corralling energy. The crystal sings now, high and sweet like a siren, but there's a sadness to it too, like Loki's magic knows that it's been tricked but doesn't know who to blame for the betrayal.

He continues on to the next one and the one after that, until Loki is trembling, skin so pale that it's grey. His eyes, when Strange wills himself to look, are dull and tired, and the sorcerer feels his stomach flip in protest, words stuttering to halt midway through Hela's charm.

"You may continue." The god tells him, voice tight and glares at his friend when Stephen gives a minute shake of his head. "We've come too far to stop now, Strange." He continues, this time softer and the mortal sorcerer swallows the bile rising in his throat and continues.

"Eht rethguad, eht tsrif nos, eht dnoces nos, eht retnahcne, eht rerecros,eht nevig." The daughter, the first son, the second son, the enchanter, and the sorcerer; they all go to join the brother in the growing pile of talismans and then there's only the unnamed ones left. These are easier to make, blank as they are, and so Strange only needs to endow them with the instructions to protect. When the last of them joins the pile, he cuts the spell and takes a step back, giving both he and Loki the space they both sorely need. The god is weak when he moves, but he manages to push himself up so that he can look at their creations and he grins, tired and too big and a little terrifying.

"They'll do." He murmurs, grabbing one, Hela's, by the cord so that he can look it over. It crackles with contact to his skin, green swirling in it's depths like a tempest and the god only looks more pleased despite the fact that he's swaying with exhaustion.

"If you ever ask me to do something like that again, I'll punch you." Strange tells him in reply, glaring when Loki only laughs at his anger.

"If I ever ask you to do something like this again, I'd hope you would." He says, crushing Hela's pendant in his fist. Emerald like pours through his clenched fingers before snaking up his arms and disappearing beneath his skin, but when he uncurls his hand, the crystal lies whole and untouched. He does this with each and every pendant, returning his magic to himself until he's back to his original level of paleness, cheeks slightly flushed and eyes shining near poison green. For now the talismans are empty, but the imprint of Loki's magic is now gracing them like a metaphysical brand, claiming their ration of Power in the event that they god were to ever fall.

In this way, his magic is bound and predestined to go to the pendants, keeping it from being stolen from Loki before the Norse deity feels fit to release it to it's new home. It's crude and barbaric, but Stephen can't say it isn't effective in a horrifying sort of way.

He just hopes that they'll never have a reason to use them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohmygod, this chapter! I hope you guys understand what happened at the end there. If not, the short of it is that Loki and Strange made some necklaces, bound Loki's magic to them so that it couldn't be stolen, with the instructions to protect the person that the pendant is intended for. Earlier in the story Strange had compared Loki's Power yield to that of an atomic bomb, meaning that Loki's potentially giving his loved ones about 8 kilotons of raw mystic energy with the sole intent of keeping that person alive.
> 
> I had originally intended to simply bind Loki's magic to his body, but plans for further on in the story swayed my hand toward this instead. The good news is that Loki can't get his magic taken away anymore, since it's no longer his to give.


	15. Friends - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hella and Co finally arrive, Strange gives Loki's children a gift, Tony has a PLAN... sorta, and Matt really doesn't understand how he got pulled into this shit again.

Pietro can't hide his appreciation when they arrive back at Strange's manor. It comes out in a long low whistle and Hela smiles despite herself.

"This is..." Their newest recruit pauses, seeming to search for the words as he looks around. "Something."

"It's home." Hela tells him. "For now."

"And here I thought you liked me." A voice calls down from the top of the grand staircase and they turn to see Strange at the top, followed by a flustered Sara. "So much for bonding over defying your father."

"And he is...?" Pietro asks, eyebrow shooting up when Stephen _floats_  down the stairs to offer him a hand.

"Stephen Strange, Earth's Sorcerer Supreme and current proprietor to a gaggle of unappreciative deities." He smiles, although it doesn't quite reach his eyes, Hela notes, and a cold weight drops into her stomach.

"My father?" She asks, glancing back at Fen only to see him stiff and silent at her side.

"Out doing things that I have no say in." The magician tells her, voice annoyed but unworried and the goddess allows herself to relax. "You must be Pietro and you," Strange turns to Kali. "You are gorgeous."

"Kali, Goddess of Death." She greets him with a regal dip of her head. "Well met. Now where exactly is my old friend?"

"Like I said, he's out. He'll be back soon and I'm sure we can all catch up then." Strange turns to Sara, who steps forward with a smile and a sweep of her arm.

"Sara Wolfe, the overworked yet underpaid secretary and this manor's new butler apparently." She begins, shooting Strange a dirty look as she leads them away from the receiving hall. "I'll be showing the two of you your rooms before I get back to filing paperwork."

"Never unappreciated though!" Stephen calls after her and she flips him off over her shoulder. He turns to Loki's children with a sigh. "Your father's fine, just handling business with a potential ally. He did want me to give you and your brothers something, though. So, if you could follow me..."

He leads them to a side room full of books and wing-backed chairs. There's a fire going in the fireplace and when Hela looks outside, she's surprised to see that it's dark out. When they had left Kali's palace it had been early morning and the jump between time only shows her how little she knows about traveling through the branches of Yggdrasil. Her father had described it too her once as the most beautiful yet terrifying spectacle he had ever seen, branches stemming far into places unknown and leaves so bright that it tore at the mind. To her it sounded like a dream, but he had warned her of how deadly such beauty could be. She thinks of it now as she looks into the flames of the fireplace and nearly startles when a hand brushes against her own.

It's only Sleipnir, who smiles at her when he looks at her, hand tugging her away from the doorway and toward a chair of her own. "How was your trip?" He asks, voice soft as he watches Strange disappear through the door once more and she sits, deliberating a moment before she brings her legs up and wraps an arm around them.

"Exciting." She tries and Fen lets out a huff from his seat by the hearth. She's shocked to see that he's once again in his wolf form, fur glistening in the light from the fireplace as his head and paws rest on his sword. "Kali had a lot of insight on Father's heritage... Our heritage."

"The frost giants?"

_'Jotnar.'_  Fen cuts in harshly, hackles raised.  _'Frost giant is a derogatory term.'_

"And Kali told you this?" Sleipnir asks, eyeing their brother warily.

_'That and the fact that grandfather saw fit to wipe out an entire civilization of mages for sport.'_  The wolf grumbles and Hela sighs.

"It has never been a secret that Odin killed the frost giants, Fen." She tells hims him calmly and he raises his large head from his paws, teeth bared in a feral facsimile to a smile.

_'They were never family before.'_  He reminds her and Sleipnir opens his mouth to comment, but Stephen cuts him off by arriving with three wooden boxes in his hands.

"Don't shed on my rug." Strange tells Loki's middle child as he passes the boxes out. "That's an antique Sarouk Farahan and I don't want to ask Sara to pluck the hairs out of it again after the whole Pixiu incident..." He pauses in the middle of laying Fenrir's box at his feet and frowns. "Maybe I do need to start paying her more."

Fenrir lets out a bark of a laugh, transforming between one breath and the next so that he can scoop the wooden container up and look it over. There's a latch on the front and he flicks it open with a nail. Hela does the same, only to have all the breath rush out of her in a single startling moment. She stares down at the pendant within, blinking furiously when her vision blurs and can faintly make out a low groan from Sleipnir beside her. Reaching out she removes the necklaces, traces of residual magic and her father's unique Power signature dancing across her fingers like water in a pond.

"It's a gift." Strange tells them as she loops the amulet around her neck. It rests comfortably between her ribs and she takes a moment to let her own magic study it curiously. "Your father wanted to give you something to keep you safe and keep his magic out of harms way at the same time. He wanted to bind it originally, but this way seemed better given the circumstances."

"And you helped?" Sleipnirs asks, the polished suede of his own gift glinting from it's place beneath his shirt and Stephen doesn't exactly hide his wince despite her brother's mellow tone.

"It was either that or let him do it on his own." The sorcerer tells him. "I'd rather have been there to help that let him do something so..."

"Idiotic," Fenrir volunteers and Hela shoots him a quelling look that he summarily ignores.

"Yes, that." The sorcerer claps his hands once and rubs them together as he rocks on his heels. "So, I hope you keep them safe and remember not to shoot the messenger." He jokes and Sleipnir gives him a small smile in response.

"We'll speak to my father when he returns." He tells him, ever the mediator. "For now, I think it would be best if my siblings and I got a moment to ourselves."

The sorcerer seems to get the hint, even if he does frown at being dismissed in his own home. Hela makes sure to give him a particularly vibrant smile when he looks her way and lays a palm on his arm as he passes. "Thank you for looking after father while we were away." She says and he shrugs.

"I couldn't exactly let him crash the place by spontaneously combusting due to sheer stupidity, now could I?" He responds, leaving the room before she can say anything further and she turns to her brothers with a breathless laugh. Sleipnir fishes his amulet out and looks at it thoughtfully when she watches and the sound of a soft grumble reveals that Fenrir's once again a wolf in his place by the fire. She does note that the reflection of her brother's crystal on the rug below him and reaches out a foot to rub comfortingly against his side.

"Everything will be fine." She assures him and he puffs out a breath before scraping his nails against the carpet beneath him in defiance.

...

Rhodey can't help but try to hold down his want to laugh when Sam finally sulks into the living room after his run in with "Ant-Man". Not that someone gaining the upper hand over his team-mate was funny or anything. It's just, "He was the size of an ant?"

"He could make himself bigger." Sam groans, snagging a beer from the fridge and flopping down on one of the couches. He stares at it for a moment before pressing it to his face with a relieved sigh.

"Like how much bigger? Lady bug or grasshopper?" Rhodey continues, barely glancing up as the door opens to admit their missing senior Avengers. "Should we get one of those Roach Hotel things?"

Sam cracks an eye open at him, pointing the beer bottle threateningly. "You're just as bad as Tony, you know that?"

"I resent that." said inventor calls, pulling the bottle from his hand and using the table edge to pop it open. He takes a sip, grimaces, then disappears to find something (presumably) stronger. He returns with a glass of amber liquid and a gold circular shaped gun, the latter of which he immediately starts fiddling with despite his current lack of tools. Thor watches him with clear disapproval but the billionaire studiously ignores him. "We have roaches?"

"An ant problem." Sam stresses and Rhodey chuckles.

"Raptor boy over here got himself beat up by a man the size of an ant."

"Not possible." Tony shoots back and Natasha arches one elegant eyebrow at him in response.

"We already have gods and aliens, what's to say people can't shrink?" Steve asks for her and Tony groans.

"We don't need shrinking people." The inventor quips back, tossing the gun between his hands a few times before he levels it at one of Friday's sensors. The room immediately plunges into darkness, save for the glow of Tony's reactor and the evening light shining through the windows.

"Anthony," Thor says in warning and the billionaire grins at him, his reactor casting his face in sharp relief. The lights flicker back on.

"So I was right." He hums, twirling the gun on his finger, and even Rhodey shies away from him. "Friday, status report."

"Everything is at a hundred percent, sir, despite the brief moment of blackout. However, during those few seconds, the mansion's energy levels dropped to zero, including all defenses."

"The generators?" Tony asks, ignoring the disapproving look that Steve shoots his way.

"Drained as well." The AI dutifully replies.

"Did you get a gauge of how far out the blast went?" The inventor stands as he talks, making his way toward the elevator and the labs beyond. Out of the corner of his eye he notices Thor following him, but decides not to comment on it in favor of listening to Friday's status report. Apparently the blackout zone had extended to the mansion's entire ground, knocking out everything from security systems to cell phones. He studies the gun as she talk, listening with half an ear while his mind goes a mile a minute, thinking up plans and scrapping them before they're fully formed.

They reach the labs before he knows it and he sets the gun down on one of his work benches, drawing up empty graphs with a flick of his fingers. "Friday, transfer all of the data that you have so far onto a file and save it."

"And what shall I name it, sir?"

Tony looks down at the gun in his hands and frowns at it for a moment before his face lights up with something close to glee. "Name it B-Tam and lock down the labs. We have work to do."

"Are you sure that whatever you are going to do is a good idea, Anthony?" Thor pipes up for the first time since their arrival at the mansion and Tony shoots him a blinding smile and shrugs.

"Probably not, but I'll sure feel a whole lot better knowing that I have some ammunition on my side if all of this," He waves a hand expansively. "Goes shit side up. Now what can you tell me about this thing?"

Thor picks up the gun and studies it for a long moment when Tony tosses it to him, brow furrowed as he turns it over in his large hands. "It is a Power Gun normally used in the capturing of powerful mages. Aesir warriors are rarely magically inclined and unlike the Vanir we don't rely on battle mages when it comes to fighting sorcerers."

"So you made a weapon to cripple them." Tony pieces in and Thor nods.

"It is a temporary measure and only meant to subdue a mage long enough for them to be brought in."

"By crippling them."

Thor winces, handing the gun back with a guarded look. "From what I know it is not a pleasant experience, but a necessary precaution when it comes to magic wielders. Why my father would give such a weapon to Sif is beyond my knowledge."

Tony stops flicking through his newly acquired energy readings long enough to shoot the god an incredulous look. "Maybe to take down your magic wielding brother and drag him back to Asgard?"

"No," Thor gives a decisive shake of his, gaze trained on a far corner of the room as he takes a moment to gather his thought. "Typical magic users would not be adversely affected by such a weapon beyond physical weakness and a dampening of their powers. They would not be able to call on Yggdrasil's branches for energy. Loki is different as a... Jotun. His biology is heavily reliant on the Power that Yggdrasil provides and it is as much a part of him as he is of it. Such a tactic would be deadly."

"What, because Baby Chaos is made of faith, trust, and pixie dust?" Tony quips and Thor shoots him a unamused glare in return, blue eye crackling with energy.

"From what I remember of my history lessons, the Jotnar are a race of magically comprised beings. While not as strong as the elves, they're elemental rather than taught."

"So it's like their life force?" Tony clarifies around the distinct feeling that they've been talking in circles. He files Thor's impromptu biology lesson away in the recesses of his brain for later use and turns his gaze back to his schematics. "That's why Loki dropped like a stack of bricks when Sif hit him with it."

"Yes, and why he reverted back to his Jotun form while down. Without his magic, his body would have no longer had the means to sustain any spells, whether they were his work or not." Thor pauses, looks from Tony to the energy readout shining blue in the air, then back at the inventor. "What do you plan to use this information for, my friend?"

"If I tell you, you can't smite me with your mighty hammer." Tony tells him and the god scowls, arms crossing over his chest. "I want to create a way to trap your brother if he goes Dark Side and this little baby," He twirls the gun on a finger. "Is my ticket to doing that. We don't exactly have the technology for energy vacuums down here on Earth, but I figure if this thing is sucking energy up and spitting it back out then there has to be some residue. Your brother's has to be in their somewhere and if I can get that then I can create a force field that's attuned to him and him alone."

"I was unaware that you had such technology." Thor says, curious despite the stiffness of his muscles. Tony can tell he doesn't like the idea, especially when it comes to his brother, but he's kind of hoping that the fact that it's Loki will give the god that extra push into not bludgeoning him with his hammer.

"We don't, not yet at least." Tony replies smartly, splaying his fingers to bring up a holographic display of the gun. With a flick of his wrist, he sends it spinning and begins taking it apart with practiced movements. "But I'm not called a genius just because of my PhD's. If anyone can figure out how to make an energy shield strong enough to hold a god, it would be me."

"You are very confident." Thor tells him and Tony resists the urge to snort.

"I'm me, big guy, don't sound so surprised."

"If my brother finds out..."

Tony winces, rubs a hand over the back of his neck. "Yeah."

...

When a dark-haired woman walks into Nelson & Murdock at three in the afternoon on a Saturday, Foggy almost spits his drink onto Karen's desk. He catches it his cup and wipes a sleeve across his mouth as the woman pauses to look around, ignoring the amused look Karen shoots him and steps around her desk to greet the new comer.

"Nelson and Murdock, how can we be of service?" He asks and behind his back Karen rolls her eyes with a barely audible noise of disgust. It catches the woman's attention better than Foggy's greeting and cold green eyes turn to study them both. "I'm Nelson by the way. Foggy Nelson."

The woman regards his outstretched hand for a moment before taking it and giving it a firm shake. "Loptr Lyesmith." She replies, a light accent curling around the words and a part of Foggy's brain throws up the word _exotic_  before he can shut it down. "I'm actually here for the other half of your firm."

"Oh," Foggy blinks and shakes out his now aching fingers. "Matt's actually not in at the moment, but I can show you to a room while you wait."

The woman's red lips tilt up in a smile, gracious and just this edge of predatory and Foggy blinks again. "That's be lovely, but..."

"She can't stay." A voice finishes from the door and Foddy turns to see Matt closing the door behind him, cane clutched in his non-dominant hand. "Sorry, Ms. Lyesmith but I don't think we can cover your case."

"You haven't ever heard the whole of it yet, Mr. Murdock." Loptr points out and Matt pauses midway across the room and flicks his tongue across his lip in a way that Foggy knows means that he's trying to speed think up a correct response.

"I really think we should get a room." Foggy breaks in before Matt can say something stupid, making 'quit it' motion with his hands that he knows Matt can make out, the lying bastard. Matt's jaw clenches in response before he gives a stiff nod and Foggy does a tiny fist pump. The raven haired woman arches an eyebrow at him and he clears his throat as his cheeks bloom red.

"Uh, this way, my lady." He tells her, gesturing for her to walk ahead of him to the only conference room they actually have. It's cramped and still has a stack of boxes in the corner but Loptr doesn't seem to care. She merely perches in a chair and hold one legs over the other as she waits for them to do the same.

"I wasn't exactly expecting to see you again." Matt begins and Loptr frowns at him.

"I gave you my card before I left." She says, tone arrogant now that she's away from the main room and Foggy scoots his chair away of a little. "I assumed that meant that I would contact you."

"You gave me a headache." Matt corrects and Foggy hisses out a low "Dude!" under his breath. Matt ignores him but the woman's eyes zero in on him like a bird of prey.

"You're the friend."

"Yeah," He replies, then feels the need to clarify. "Best friend actually. Or more like partners, partners in law, not, ya'know in life."

"Foggy," Matt sighs and Foggy gives him a helpless hand gesture in turn. "Listen, Loki, I don't want anything to do with whatever it is you're... doing."

"Wait! Is this a," Foggy puts two fingers up to his head to make little horns. "Thing?"

Matt lets out another sigh. "Unfortunately."

"On the contrary, I think my proposal could prove beneficial to us both." Loptr-Loki contradicts airily, looking around the tiny office and not even bothering to hide her distaste. "I need a trainer with martial skills and you have those skills, as you demonstrated upon our initial meeting."

"And what's in it for him?" Foggy asks, ever his friend's loyal defender, even if Matt doesn't look too happy with him carrying the conversation farther into negotiation territory.

"He'll be owed a favor from a god." She states simply, like that's what'll get them to sign on the dotted line. She's never met someone as stubborn as stubborn as one of the Murdock clan though, because, sure enough:

"But you're not exactly at full power right now, are you?" Matt shoots back and there must be stutter in her heartbeat, because she gives no outward response to Matt's words, but his friend smirks nonetheless. "You smell like you got in a fight with a lightning bolt and lost."

"A minor setback and the actual reason for me contacting you now instead of later."

Foggy has to give the woman -goddess- props. She shoulders on with determination despite Matt's flat out refusal to buy whatever she's selling. He's totally be kicking his friend under the table if Loki didn't send off all kind of alarm bells in his head. Still, "What kind of favor are we talking?"

"Foggy," Matt cuts in, standing with his cane clutched firmly in his hand. "A word please?"

And, oh, he knows that tone of voice. That's the we're-totally-gonna-have-a-whispered-argument-in-the-hall voice and sure enough they do. It starts with Matt letting out a long, frustrated sigh and then they're off, hissing at each other so Karen doesn't overhear them with her super sensitive detective ears from the other room.

"What are you doing?" More exasperated than angry, all Matt.

"Negotiating with a god... goddess. Maybe, is she actually?" Foggy - awed, and admittedly a little excited at the prospect, because, _hello_ , there's a god sitting in their office.

"Yes, which is why I want her out of our office." Also a valid point, dammit.

"So you don't think this is a good idea?" Curious, but hey, Foggy's always been curious about, well, everything.

"You do?" Exasperated again because Matt can never really be truly angry when it comes to his best friend and Foggy would beam but they're supposed to having a serious debate right now.

"I think that listening to her is better than throwing her out the door and offending her." Matt frowns at him and Foggy mimics the expression back at him.

"I don't need a favor from a god, Foggy." Matt insists and Foggy bites back a snort. Matt seems to notice it anyway. "I can handle everything just fine without having deities meddle with my life."

"Because the whole Fisk thing didn't nearly get all of us killed, right?" Foggy shoots back and he knows he's won their not-argument when Matt winces and deflates like an old balloon. He knows that Matt still regrets that, even if he's not sure whether it's due to the mess that it made of their lives or the fact that Foggy found out about the whole Daredevil thing. They've argued about it, sure, but Matt always finds a way of changing the subject before they can really get down to the bare bones of the issue, so Foggy isn't really skittish with using it against him.

They're walking on eggshells, sure, but Foggy's glad he knows because someone has to keep his idiot of a best friend out of trouble. Foggy just figures that he's stepping his job description as best friend up a notch and Matt'll just have to learn how to rely on him, because he sure as hell isn't going anywhere now.

"Fine," Matt sighs and Foggy lets out a little hiss of triumph, face lighting up with a grin. Matt just pinches the bridge of his nose, but Foggy can tell that his hand is hiding a fond smile, so he doesn't feel too bad about it. "But I still get final say on any decisions." Matt interrupts his miniature celebration and Foggy shrugs.

"I can deal with that." He says and he can. "Now lets go barter with a goddess!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took so long to get out (understatement of the year), but I like it. Believe me when I say this is like the eighth draft, though, and I'm not all that sure about Matt in this part. Him and Foggy are going through a rocky time right now, but no worries, they'll be back to being the wonderful Avocados at Love soon enough.
> 
> As for Strange's noncommittal behavior in this chapter, well, he's just not happy with Loki right now.
> 
> B-Tam is an anagram for Breeds There A Man...? - which is a short story by Isaac Asimov in which scientists are working on a force field ("energy so channeled as to create a wall of matter-less inertia"), capable of protecting the population in case of a nuclear war. In Tony's case, he's creating a shield against magical attacks by studying Loki's magic and the energy conversion properties of the Power Gun. I'll get more into these plans as the story progresses though and we can all have a proper science nerd out.


End file.
